United Arab Emirates shares lower at close of trade; DFM General down 0.88%

Investing.com – United Arab Emirates equities were lower at the close on Thursday, as losses in the Finance & Investment , Real Estate & Construction and Consumer Staples sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in Dubai, the DFM General fell 0.88%, while the ADX General index fell 0.81%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the DFM General were Dubai Islamic Insurance Co. (DU: AMAN ), which rose 0.47% or 0.004 points to trade at 0.860 at the close. Emirate Integrated Telecom Co PJSC (DU: DU ) unchanged 0.00% or 0.000 points to end at 6.000 and Emirates NBD PJSC (DU: ENBD ) was unchanged 0.00% or 0.000 points to 8.100 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Takaful House (DU: DTKF ), which lost 3.42% or 0.050 points to trade at 1.410 in late trade. Gulf Navigation Holding PJSC (DU: GNAV ) declined 3.38% or 0.050 points to end at 1.430 and National Cement Company P.S.C. (DU: NCC ) shed 2.82% or 0.090 points to 3.100.

The top performers on the ADX General were Umm Al Qaiwain Cement Industries Co PSC (AD: QIC ) which rose 14.74% to 1.0900, Abu Dhabi National for Building Materials Co PJSC (AD: BILD ) which was up 5.26% to settle at 0.600 and Rak Ceramics (AD: RKCE ) which gained 1.79% to close at 2.280.

The worst performers were Em Driving Co (AD: DRIV ) which was down 9.72% to 7.80 in late trade, Commercial Bank International (AD: CBI ) which lost 9.30% to settle at 1.560 and Arkan Building Materials Co PJSC (AD: ARKN ) which was down 2.78% to 0.7000 at the close.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 33 to 1 and 3 ended unchanged; on the Abu Dhabi, 17 fell and 7 advanced, while 5 ended unchanged on the Dubai Stock Exchange.

In commodities trading, Crude oil for May delivery was up 0.11% or 0.06 to $53.17 a barrel. Meanwhile, Brent oil for delivery in June rose 0.20% or 0.11 to hit $55.97 a barrel, while the June Gold Futures contract rose 0.93% or 11.95 to trade at $1290.05 a troy ounce.

USD/AED was up 0.01% to 3.6732, while EUR/AED fell 0.27% to 3.9067.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.17% at 100.23.