Emirates NBD surges after profit forecast of Islamic finance unit

Markets Wrap: Emirates NBD surged after its Islamic unit forecast full year profits would double. The stock gained 6.4 per cent, the biggest advance since April 2011, to Dh3.31.

Deira, October 25, 2011 - Emirates NBD Bank headquarters in Deira, Dubai, October 25, 2011. STOCK (Jeff Topping/The National)
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Emirates NBD surged after its Islamic unit forecast full-year profits would double.

The stock gained 6.4 per cent, the biggest advance since April 2011, to Dh3.31 a share.

About 1.3 million shares were traded yesterday, triple the three-month daily average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The stock was the biggest gainer on the Dubai Financial Market General Index. Emirates Islamic Bank, wholly owned by Emirates NBD, will seek to boost net income to Dh150 million this year from about Dh80m last year, its chief executive Jamal Bin Ghalaita said on Monday.

In Saudi Arabia, shares declined yesterday as corporate earnings from the kingdom's cement sector disappointed investors.

Yamama Saudi Cement posted a fourth-quarter profit of 174m riyals, an 8.9 per cent decline from last year.

"The decrease in profits on a yearly basis can be attributed to lower cement realisation prices which are capped at 240 riyals per tonne by the government," the Global Investment House financial analyst Turki Al Yaqout said in a note to clients.

Yamama's shares declined 0.2 per cent to 47.6 riyals yesterday.

Cement stocks rallied last year, offering a hedge for investors to weather a turbulent financial market storm triggered by the Arab Spring uprisings.

The Saudi Tadawul All-Share Index rose 0.2 per cent to 7,036.33 yesterday.

Closer to home, the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange General Index slipped 0.1 per cent to 2,769.67, weighed by banking stocks as investors remained focused on recent lending restrictions on mortgage loans introduced by the Central Bank.

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, the biggest Sharia-compliant bank, fell 0.9 per cent to close at Dh3.25 a share.

"The issue is that we just getting to the recovery phase," said Wadah Al Taha, the chief investment officer at Al Zarooni Group in Dubai.

The DFM General Index rose 0.3 per cent to 1,741.31.

* with Bloomberg News