Executive Summary
Dubai equities are at the forefront once again, topping the market performance for October 2024 and extending their yearly gains to 13%. Abu Dhabi markets have witnessed an uptick in IPOs during the year, with the recently concluded IPO of retailer Lulu garnering investor attention. Islamic Banking stocks have been outperforming their conventional counterparts, supported by increasing demand for Shariah-compliant products and the preference towards Islamic financing to fund Infrastructure projects. While Saudi Arabia equities have been flat for the year so far, some noteworthy wealth creators like ACWA Power and Ma’aden have outperformed. Crypto and Gold continue to surge ahead, while S&P500 had a quiet month with confusing earnings and economic numbers coming in. Economic metrics exhibit very high levels of polarity with street consensus always getting it wrong when played conservatively while the reality always turns more optimistic than expected. Market outlook for 2025 remains positive, with more than 50% of investors expecting equity market (especially US) to trend higher. Just for perspective, this was only 25% two years back and as stock markets has seen one of the largest gains, so is investor confidence.
