Doha: Qatar Exchange index closed slightly lower at 14,027.46 points, down 19.15 points, or 0.14 percent, when trading closed yesterday.
The trading value was down to QR734.342m from Tuesday’s QR797.309m while the number of transactions was down to 7,460 from 7,824.
The trading volume dropped to 15,680,686 from the previous day’s 18,429,905 shares.
Real estate (0.88 percent), transport (0.63 percent), industries (0.15 percent) and consumer goods and services (0.14 percent) sectors gained yesterday.
Gulf International Services (GIS) pulled back 1.0 percent after jumping 4.7 percent in the previous session when it signed a $1.4 billion contract with Qatar Petroleum.
Shares of 42 from the 43 listed companies saw trading yesterday. From these, 20 made good gains, 17 went down and five remained unchanged.
Meanwhile, Dubai’s bourse fell sharply yesterday as investors accumulated cash for the upcoming initial public offer of Emaar Properties’ malls unit, while most other markets in the region slipped.
The Dubai index fell 3.4 percent after dropping as much as 4.4 percent at one stage. Emaar itself lost 2.7 percent. In one of the largest equity sales in the Middle East since 2008, the company plans to float its unit Emaar Malls Group this month and subscriptions for the shares will open on September 14.
“People are trying to take profits in order to take part in the IPO,” said Marwan Shurrab, fund manager and head of trading at Vision Investments in Dubai. “Any selling pressure you see on the market is going to be related to that.”
Emaar, which plans to sell a 15 percent stake in its subsidiary, has indicated it wants to raise at least Dh5.3bn ($1.4bn) from the offer. It has also said it aims to sell about 30 percent of the offer to retail investors.
Another negative factor for equity markets globally on Wednesday was indications that the US Federal Reserve could raise interest rates earlier than expected.
Interest rates in the United Arab Emirates are expected to track US rates closely because of the dirham’s peg to the dollar. The UAE and other Gulf economies are likely to withstand higher rates better than most emerging economies because of their big current account and state budget surpluses.
Nevertheless, Dubai’s red-hot real estate market could be slowed, and its stock market is dominated by property-related stocks.
Abu Dhabi’s index dipped along with Dubai and fell one percent. Developer Aldar Properties was hit hardest among blue chips, dropping 4.4 percent.
Saudi Arabia’s property firms were also weak. Developers Dar Al Arkan and Jabal Omar, down 2.3 and 1.0 percent respectively, were among the main drags on the bourse’s main index, which slipped 0.2 percent.
Egypt’s bourse edged down 0.1 percent as large property developer SODIC dropped 5.1 percent, after saying it had received regulatory approval for a one billion Egyptian pound ($140m) rights issue.
Cairo-based Naeem Brokerage downgraded the stock to “hold” from “buy” afterwards, saying that while the capital boost was a positive factor, it had already been priced in. Shares in SODIC have more than doubled in price this year.
Agencies
