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Dubai stock market gains most among GCC peers in April
DFM General Index increased 4.1% last month to close at 5,307.15 points
- PUBLISHED: Sun 4 May 2025, 7:03 PM
The strength of the Dubai equity markets once again came to the fore last month, as the DFM General Index registered the biggest monthly gain in the GCC during April 2025 with a surge of 4.1 per cent to close at 5,307.15 points.
According the data from Kamco Invest, the index showed partial recovery from the previous month’s decline with year to date gains now recorded at 2.9 per cent. Among the sectoral indices, five out of eight sectors posted growth during the month, while the remaining three declined.
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Nonetheless, the overall index surged due to the strong performance of the three largest-weighted sectors, including the financial index, which rose by 5.9 per cent in April 2025 to close at 3,645.1 points. “The increase was largely driven by gains in heavyweight stocks such as Commercial Bank of Dubai (+22.8 per cent) and National General Insurance (+16.4 per cent),” a report by Junaid Ansari, Kamco’s head of investment strategy & research, Mohamed Ali Omar, associate and Vineetha K. Yeluri, analyst, said.
The communications index recorded the largest sectoral gain for the month, climbing to 7.9 per cent to close at 1,468.5 points, mainly fueled by a 7.9 per cent rise in the share price of Emirates Integrated Telecom during April 2025. Conversely, the materials index experienced a steep 22.7 per cent decline in April 2025, marking the largest drop among all indices for the month.
According to the monthly stock performance from Bloomberg, Commercial Bank of Dubai topped the monthly gainers table with a 22.8 per cent jump in share price followed by National General Insurance and Air Arabia with gains of 16.4 per cent and 12.9 per cent, respectively. On the decliner’s side, National Cement topped the table with a decline of 22.7 per cent followed by shares of Dubai Islamic Insurance and Emirates Investment Bank which recorded declines of 12.0 per cent and 10.2 per cent, respectively, during April 2025.
Trading activity on the exchange increased last month. The total volume of traded shares rose 33.0 per cent in April to reach 4.7 billion shares as compared to 3.6 billion shares during the previous month. On the other hand, the total value of shares traded gained 13.0 per cent to reach Dh12.8 billion in April as compared to Dh11.3 billion in March 2025.
Drake & Scull International topped the list of the most active stocks table during the month with 553.7 million traded shares followed by Talabat and Shuaa Capital, which traded 544.3 million shares and 454.3 million shares, respectively. In terms of value traded, Emaar Properties topped the list of the most active stocks table during the month with Dh3.9 billion traded shares followed by Dubai Islamic Bank and Salik, which traded Dh1.2 billion shares and 1.1 billion shares, respectively.
Abu Dhabi
In Abu Dhabi, the FTSE ADX index rose 1.8 per cent rise in April, following two straight months of declines in March and February and closed the month at 9,534.33 points. The monthly advance helped the benchmark to show a gain in terms of year to date performance that reached 1.2 per cent at the end of April 2025. Performance across the ten sector indices on the exchange was evenly split, with five indices recording losses and the remaining five posting gains.
The basic materials index achieved the highest gain among all sectors in April, rising by 6.1 per cent to close at 4,706.3 points, driven by share price increases in both sector companies, namely Fertiglobe (+7.1 per cent) and Borouge (+5.7 per cent). The financials index delivered the second-largest monthly gain during the month, climbing three per cent to end the month at 17,331.5 points, largely supported by strong performances from most constituent companies, including Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (+14.1 per cent) and Multiply Group (+28.9 per cent).
In contrast, the utilities sector experienced the steepest decline in April 2025, dropping by 9.7 per cent to finish the month at 12,594.4 points. The energy sector recorded the second-largest decrease, falling by 2.4 per cent to settle at 2,107.0 points, with all four companies within the index experiencing share price declines during April 2025.
In the wider region, the volatility in GCC indices was relatively much smaller compared to global markets as the impact of tariffs are likely to be limited and indirect on the regional economies. However, a decline in large-cap stocks in the energy and utilities sector resulted in a decline of 1.2 per cent in the MSCI GCC Index during April 2025.
Somshankar Bandyopadhyay is a News Editor with more than three decades of experience. Currently, he manages the news production of the business section, ensuring that the top economic and business news of the day reaches its readers.
