Dubai Financial Market Performance, 2014

The Dubai Financial Market General Index increased by 12% to 3774 points at the end of this year compared to 3369.8 points at the end of 2013. At the sectoral level, indexes of three out of the nine sectors represented on DFM ended the year in the green, with the Banking sector increasing the most by 32.3%, followed by the Real Estate and Construction sector by 17.6% and Industrial sector by 17.5%. The Services, Insurance, Telecommunication, Consumer Staples, Financial and Investment Services and Transportation indices down 54.6%, 29.4%, 24.3%, 16.2%, 6.4%  and 5.6% respectively.

The market capitalization increased at the end of this year by 24.3% amounting to AED 322.6 billion compared to AED 259.6 billion at the end of previous year. The value of shares traded during this year reached AED 381.5  billion, compared to AED 159.9  billion recorded during 2003, up 138.6%. The number of shares traded increased by 26.2% to reach 160.5 billion shares during this year compared to 127.2 billion shares were traded during last year. The number of transactions executed during this year up 80.4% to reach 2.4 million compared to 1.3 million deals carried out during the previous year.

As for the sectors’ contribution to trading volumes, the Real Estate and Construction sector ranked first in terms of the traded value, to reach AED 243.3 billion, or 63.8% of the total traded value in the market. The Banking sector ranked Second at AED 60.9 billion or 16%, followed by the Financial and Investment Services sector with AED 50.2 billion or 13.1%, the Transportation sector with AED 13.6 billion or 3.6%, the Insurance sector with AED 4.7 billion or 1.2%, the Services sector with AED 4.4 billion or 1.1%, the Telecommunication sector with AED 3.4 billion or 0.9%, and the Consumer and Discretionary staples with 1 billion or 0.3%.

The value of stocks bought by foreign investors during this year reached AED 169.3 billion comprising 44.4% of the total traded value. The value of stocks sold by foreign investors during the same period reached AED 165.3 billion comprising 43.3% of the total value traded. Accordingly, DFM net foreign investment in-flow reached AED 4.017 billion. 

On the other hand, the value of stocks bought by institutional investors during this year reached AED 106.7 billion comprising 28% of the total traded value. The value of stocks sold by institutional investors during the same period reached AED 107.7  billion which constitutes 28.2% of the total value traded. Net institutional investment out-flow from DFM amounted to AED 1.037 billion.