Weeks to market upgrade, Dubai shares surge most in world

With less than one month to go for the technical reclassification of the UAE’s markets to emerging markets status, the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) General Index is currently the best performing market index this year, up by 44 per cent in less than four months.

The index crossed the 4,800-mark last week for the first time since August 2008, and closed at 4,843.35 points on April 20, 2014, up 1.7 per cent over last Thursday's close.

Among the top gainers of the day was property firm Al Mazaya Holding Company, which shot up a massive 14.7 per cent on the day. The second top gainer was Dubai Investments (DIC), whose share closed at Dh4.150, surging by more than 5 per cent over last week’s close. DIC made its 52-week high on Sunday.

Shares in the Dubai-based construction firm Arabtec Holding closed at Dh7.290, 4.29 per cent over last week’s close, marking a 52-week high for the company. Real estate developer Deyaar Development was the fourth top gainer of the day, with shares up 3.77 per cent today and closing at Dh1.650. 

Among the other top gainers of the day were Nasdaq-listed interior design firm Depa, which was up 2.75 per cent on Sunday. Shares in finance major Emirates NBD bank were also up 2.75 per cent while Al Salam Kuwait was up 2.19 per cent.

The UAE’s markets are set to get upgraded from frontier-market status to emerging markets on May 14, 2014, by index provider MSCI. Investors will be eyeing additional liquidity flowing into the local markets as a result of that reclassification.
 

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.