By: Mahmoud Gamal
Dubai – Mubasher: The UAE bourses are amid the best regional and global peers on the back of firms’ significant financial results and generous dividend distributions, analysts told Mubasher.
By the end of Monday’s trading session, the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) remained stable at 3,306.53 points, while the Abu Dhabi Securities Market (ADX) closed the session up 0.25% to 4,593.30 points.
Extending gains
The UAE stock markets are expected to see a positive performance and extend gains over the coming days, in line with keeping the current technical levels, market analyst Ziad Al Qaimari told Mubasher.
The DFMGI is settling above 3,300 points, hence, it is likely to carry on rising towards 3,440 points, while the ADX’s general index is projected to hover around 4,700 points, Al Qaimari highlighted.
The financial results of companies listed on the local stock markets could have remarkably bolstered the current prices of stocks, he said.
Al Qaimari emphasised that many firms are recently trading on attractive purchasing prices, anticipating the upcoming cash dividend distributions for 2017, which are given to shareholders at the same period of each year with a nearly 7% return for several firms, including major ones.
UAE banks
The Emirati stocks, mainly of the banks sector, are among the cheapest in the world despite being profitable and US dollar-denominated, in addition to providing more than 6% cash dividends, head of MENA and global frontier markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Dubai Hootan Yazhari said.
About 25 of these companies are listed on the DFM and proposed total dividends of AED 21.26 billion, while the remaining 18 firms are listed on the DFM and proposed overall dividends of AED 10.3 billion, according to Mubasher statistics.
Meanwhile, about 70 firms listed on the UAE's two stock markets have not announced any dividends yet, statistics indicated.
Yazhari noted that the Emirati banks are likely to be the most attractive in 2018 in regard to other emerging markets in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, according to Bloomberg.
He projected the UAE’s economic growth to rise on the back of a number of factors, including the Expo 2020 Dubai.
Translated by: Mai Ezz El-Din
