Foreigners can’t stop selling in the worst stock market of 2018

Foreigners don’t seem to want to enter the new year holding shares in the worst performing market of 2018.

Overseas investors in Dubai’s main stock exchange were net sellers of 853 million dirhams ($232 million) of shares as of the end of last week, the most for a single year since the data started being provided. The category excludes investors from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council and other Arab countries.

Foreigners are fleeing Dubai’s main bourse after the value traded shrank to the level of 2013 amid growing concerns tied to the performance of the local economy. The DFM General Index has retracted 24 percent this year, more than any other major index in the world, mostly pressured by stocks of developers and real estate companies.

It would be the first year of net sales since 2011 for this category of investors in Dubai, marking a sharp contrast to the record 3.3 billion dirhams of net purchases in 2014, when the United Arab Emirates was upgraded to the emerging markets category by MSCI.

L.P