UAE markets up Dhs19bn

By Abdul Rahman Ismail

The Muscat Stock market continued its upward trend, rising 1.1% to register a new record high for the second consecutive day. That gave it a 4.3% rise for the week, as it passed 12,000 points, the highest since it was established.

The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) was the second best performer of the week, eliminating last month's losses by rising 2.5%. Elsewhere, the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) rose 2.1%, Doha 2%, Saudi Tadawul 1.7%, Kuwait 1.3% and Bahrain by 0.78%.

All exchanges rose today, with Doha up 0.5%, Kuwait 0.40%, the DFM 0.30% and 0.15% for Abu Dhabi and Bahrain.

UAE shares leap

Shares on exchanges in the UAE rose Dhs19.3bn, with their market value jumping from Dhs864.1bn last week to Dhs883.4bn this week. The value of trading jumped to Dhs17.4bn or 11.2%, compare to Dhs15.7bn last week.

The ADX took the lions share for second consecutive week, accounting for Dhs9.3bn, representing 53.7% of the total trading. The DFM traded Dhs8bn.

Emaar led the DFM trading, hitting Dhs11.90, rising 0.42%. Dubai Investments took the biggest slice of trading with Dhs237.6m out of the Dhs1.2bn traded in the market, rising 0.74%.

Al Salam Bank (Sudan) shares saw no deals on its first day of trading, remaining at its opening price at Dhs7.16.

The ADX saw Sharjah Islamic Bank topping all shares in terms of value and volume traded - Dhs430.5m out of Dhs1.8bn and 137.6 million shares out of 429.2 million shares traded in the market, rising by 4.6%.

Muscat hits new highs, Kuwait stays above 15,200

Muscat's move past the 12,000 points mark saw it hit record levels. The rise was attributed to the same seven shares which pushed the index up yesterday. They dominated 61% of total trading, which reached OR27m as 42.7 million shares were bought and sold.

Kuwait Stock Exchange remained above 15,200 points after witnessing strong deals on small shares. For third consecutive day, Al Safa International shares registered a strong rise, up 8.9%, in spite of the losses it posted in the first quarter. The $30.6m acquisition deal announced by Agility for a Chinese firm pushed its share up 3.3%.

Gulf International shares saw the biggest decline in the market, down 6.3%, despite accounting for 10.2 million of the 30.4 million shares traded in the market, valued at KD1.6bn.

The decline was down to an announcement by the company that first quarter profits is down to KD75m, while share profit was KD0.61 compare to KD0.64 for the same period last year.

Bahrain's Al Salam Bank up 6%

In Bahrain, Al Salam Bank rose 6%, trading 5.3 million shares representing 57.6% of total trading, pushing the Bahrain stock market higher. In total, 9.2 million shares were traded. Ahli United Bank witnessed strong trading of 1.2 million shares, but closed unchanged.