Nasdaq Dubai, the global financial exchange serving the region between Western Europe and East Asia, said the value of equities traded on the exchange in October jumped 30 per cent to $155 million compared to $119 million last year.

The increase comes after Nasdaq Dubai’s outsourcing of its trading, settlement, clearing and custody functions for equities to Dubai Financial Market (DFM) in July 2010, as part of a strategy to increase trading of its equities by individual investors and merge them in one liquidity pool with institutional investors, said a senior official.

DP World, Nasdaq Dubai’s largest listed company, was in the top 5 traded companies of all DFM and Nasdaq Dubai stocks by value on 71 per cent of trading days in October 2010. It was the most highly traded on 14 per cent of days.

Nasdaq Dubai was the best performing stock exchange in the UAE during the month, measured by percentage change of traded value from October 2009.

Jeff Singer, chief executive of Nasdaq Dubai, said its traded value has increased every month since the outsourcing, as investors make use of the joint trading platform.

"In October three more UAE brokers joined the exchange to take advantage of the merger of our liquidity pool with DFM’s," he noted.

The brokers are Al Dhabi Brokerage, Index Securities, and Naeem Shares & Bonds. Their arrival raises the number of regional and international members of Nasdaq Dubai to 34, he added.

UAE brokers have increased their share of trading of Nasdaq Dubai equities since the outsourcing to DFM. In October, the most active broker by volume was Al Futtaim HC Securities, followed by Deutsche Bank and then EFG Hermes.

In the first 10 months, Nasdaq Dubai’s equities traded value rose 31 per cent to $1.1 billion from $840 million in the same period of 2009.

The FTSE Nasdaq Dubai UAE 20 index rose in October 2010 to end the month at 1,874, up 6 per cent from the end of September. Since the start of the year the index has gained one per cent.

The index tracks 20 liquid stocks listed on DFM, the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and Nasdaq Dubai. It has been designed as a hedging and investment mechanism for GCC and international investors.-TradeArabia News Service