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29 March 2024

Dubai index crosses 5,000; Emaar at 52-week high

Published
By Vicky Kapur

The Dubai Financial Market General Index closed at 5,062.97 points on Sunday, up 135 points, or 2.73 per cent over last week’s close at 4,928.22 points.

The Abu Dhabi Exchange (ADX) index trended marginally higher today, closing at 5,082.72 points, up 0.23 per cent or 11.75 points today.

This marks the first time the Dubai benchmark index has breached the 5,000-mark after hitting a six-year-high in April this year, just before the MSCI’s classification upgrade of the UAE markets to emerging markets took effect.

The DFM index has continued its strong growth and broke the psychologically significant barrier of 5,000 for the first time in almost six years on April 22, closing at 5,018.98 on that day.

The index rose further in May as the MSCI upgrade took effect, but the lean summer months saw it drop down to an intra-day low of 3,899.99 on June 30, 2014, when the index finally closed at 3,942.82.

Since then, however, in exactly two months, the DFM index has surged 30 per cent, with real estate, construction and finance stocks mostly in focus. The ADX is up more than 12 per cent in the same period.

Property major Emaar Properties surged 8.8 per cent today and equalled its 52-week high of Dh11.20 today. It crossed the Dh11-mark in the morining after more than two months, and closed at Dh11.15 after equalling its 52-week-high of Dh11.2, made a few months ago in May after the DFM index first hit 5,000 this year.

The Dubai-based real estate developer Emaar today announced its intention to proceed with the sale of existing shares in Emaar Malls Group (EMG) via an initial public offering (IPO) on the Dubai Financial Market (DFM).

In the statement to the Dubai bourse, the property developer noted that it would pay a dividend of approximately Dh9bn ($2.45bn) to its shareholders thanks to the forthcoming IPO.

“The intention to generate proceeds for Emaar Properties by listing Emaar Malls Group shares on DFM will continue the established trend of returning funds from the group to shareholders,” Mohamed Alabbar, Chairman of Emaar Properties, said in the statement.

Among other gainers today are Emirates NBD (up 3 per cent to Dh9.7) and DP World (up 2.7 per cent to Dh19.3).