Emaar breaches 5-dirham mark as Gulf shares slump

MARKET MOVES: The majority of Gulf markets closed lower, with only Oman bucking the downward trend. (Getty Images)

Dubai's bourse led declines in the Gulf on Monday as fears of how a looming global recession will impact on the region continued to weigh on markets.

Emaar Properties ended 6.53 percent lower, hit by renewed fears over the health of Dubai's estate sector.

Construction firm Arabtec and mortgage lender Tamweel lost 8.96 percent and 6.1 percent respectively as the index ended 3.96 percent lower at 2,527 points.

Abu Dhabi's real estate sector was also hit, with Sorouh Real Estate and Arkan Building Materials plummeting 7.89 percent and 8.27 percent respectively.

The benchmark declined 1.98 percent to 3,127 points.

Saudi Arabia's benchmark ended 1.2 percent lower at 5,766 points, led lower by Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC).

The stock ended 2.57 percent down after SABIC said it expected its fourth-quarter earnings to be hit by a rapid slide in prices and a slowdown in demand due to the global financial crisis.

Samba Financial Group and Banque Saudi Fransi shed 3.36 percent and 5.34 percent respectively.

Oman's main index ended 0.1 percent higher at 6,701 points with Bank Muscat and Bank Sohar rising 1.2 percent and 1.82 percent respectively. Galfar Engineering Co. gained 1.89 percent.

Qatar's main index ended 3.65 percent lower at 6,765 points as fears of a global economic slowdown weighs on investor sentiment.

Industries Qatar and Qatar Islamic Bank slumped 5.37 percent and 6.88 percent respectively.

In Kuwait, investor concerns over the remaining third-quarter results pushed the benchmark down to end 1.57 percent lower at 9,256 points.

National Bank of Kuwait and Al-Ahli Bank lost 2.74 percent and 3.53 percent respectively.

Bahrain's main index ended 0.79 percent lower at 2,165 points.

Shares in Ithmaar Bank fell 5.75 percent, after it posted a $14.13 million pre-tax loss in the third quarter because operations were affected by the global credit crisis.

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READERS' COMMENTS

Middle Man Afordability
Posted by Parag, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Tuesday 11 November 2008 at 07:49 UAE time


This was bound to happen. Properties developed by Emaar is generally afordable only to rich high class society. But the people who are actually driving the growth of Emirate and UAE as a whole are the middle working class who cannot afford these properties. These is the class which is keen to buy property if available at afordable prices or take the same on rentals again if available on good prices.

Hence, if they (Emaar) puts up a scheme of a project having less cost per unit, they can still survive this downturn

You're late
Posted by lee, Dubai, UAE on Monday 10 November 2008 at 15:18 UAE time


If you want to lead this story with the title "Emaar breaches 5 dirham mark..." then this should have been the title of a story yesterday afternoon since that's when Emaar dipped below 5 dirhams. Today the stock never came close to 5 dirhams and was closer to 4.

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