Emaar spike perks up Dubai

Property developer's results have certainly impressed investors

Dubai's market rallied on good news coming out of Emaar Properties yesterday. "Emaar results have certainly impressed investors, especially its diversified revenue stream from hospitality and retail sources," said Wadah al Taha, a market analyst in Dubai. "This shows the strength of the company's books." The positive sentiment coming from Emaar, which is the index's largest company by market capital, was enough to secure a 0.8 per cent rise for the Dubai Financial Market General Index to 1769.34.

After the market closed on Thursday, Emaar reported a 152 per cent increase in net operating profit for the first quarter to Dh760m from the same period last year. The developer has still not released its bottom-line net income. But 87 million shares changed hands, as Emaar's shares reached a two-week high of Dh4.15 before closing at Dh4.04 - a 2.5 per cent increase for the day. The Abu Dhabi Securities Market Index closed up 0.1 per cent to 2821.82, led by the property sector. Altogether, 11.7m shares were traded alone on Aldar Properties and Sorouh Real Estate as the companies are anticipated by analysts to report first-quarter profits this week.

Both Aldar and Sorouh closed 1.6 per cent higher, to Dh4.27 and Dh2.66 respectively. Elsewhere in the region, the Saudi Tadawul All-Share Index rose 0.2 per cent, while Bahrain's index was up 0.4 per cent and Qatar's DSM20 gained 0.1 per cent. Muscat was the biggest loser, closing 0.5 per cent lower, while Kuwait's main index lost 0.05 per cent. [e-mail] [e-mail]