By Thabet Shehata

Dubai-Mubasher: The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) saw bearish performance during the first week in March, amid selling pressures on real estate, investment and bank stocks.

The benchmark index DFMGI fell this week by 3% or 117 points to end at 3,747; thus resuming the slide after last week’s marginal growth.

The market slid in four sessions but rebounded on Thursday to end relatively stable.

The UAE equity markets are currently seeing investor caution, amid foggy outlook and lack of catalysts, according to analysts.

Many investors are not finding real opportunities in the UAE stock markets currently, given such fluctuations and unstable performance, said Reda Mousallem, co-manager, Tharwat Economic Consultancy.

He expected the local equity markets to continue their fluctuation till March-end, in search of new catalysts that would spur trading.

The index was pressured by three main sectors led by investment that sagged 6.5% hurt by DI (-6%) and DFMC (-7.6%).

The real estate sector came second with a decline by 6.13%, amid negative performance for all of its constituent stocks, mainly Emaar (-5.6%) and Arabtec (-8%).

Ehab Rashad, CEO, Mubasher for Securities, attributed the recent jittery performance in UAE markets to volatility in global markets and oil prices.

The banks sector tailed the list (-0.3%) after Emirates NBD remained unchanged, DIB rose 0.6% and the rest of stocks went down.

Meanwhile, four sectors were in green, topped by industrial (+15%), while telecommunication made the least gains (+1.57%).

The market liquidity continued to be low, reaching AED 2.3 billion, at an average of AED 462.65 million per session. Traded volume amounted to nearly 1.6 billion shares, at an average of 325.4 million shares per session.

Translated by Sayed Abdel Rahman