26 Feb, 2018SICO UAE becomes Member of Nasdaq Dubai’s equity derivatives market to offer clients new investment tools

·Move is latest step in SICO’s regional expansion programme

·SICO UAE customers can trade newly created DFM and ADX index futures

Securities & Investment Company UAE (SICO UAE) has joined Nasdaq Dubai’s derivatives market as a Member, in order to provide its clients with new opportunities to take positions on regional share markets.

The move is the latest step in a regional expansion programme by Bahrain-based SICO. This has also included SICO UAE becoming equities Member of Nasdaq Dubai in March 2017.

Najla Al Shirawi, Chairperson of SICO UAE, said: "Nasdaq Dubai’s expanding equity derivatives market offers attractive investment opportunities to our growing range of mainly institutional and high net worth individual clients and paves the way for us to introduce new investment products which our markets until recently were lacking the tools to make such products feasible. Benefits to investors include the ability to hedge and take a position on the expected movement of UAE share prices, both up and down, using leverage to magnify the financial outcome of their futures trades."

Launched in 2016, Nasdaq Dubai’s equity derivatives market has expanded to currently offer single stock futures on shares of 17 leading UAE-listed companies. ADNOC Distribution, Emaar Malls and GFH Financial Group have all been added during the past three months. The exchange launched futures on the DFMGI index of Dubai Financial Market (DFM) and ADI index of Abu Dhabi Securities Market (ADX) earlier this month.

Hamed Ali, Chief Executive of Nasdaq Dubai, said: "SICO UAE provides a significant new investor channel into our equity derivatives market as we prepare for further growth, which will in due course include the addition of a variety of futures products on regional share markets. Our cooperation with SICO, backed by its substantial brokerage and other expertise and experience around the GCC, will support the continuing expansion of the region’s capital markets framework."

SICO, the sole owner of SICO UAE, is a premier regional wholesale bank whose activities include brokerage, market making, asset management, investment banking and custody and fund administration. SICO specialises in providing its clients with innovative and informed investment solutions and products that covers the public capital markets in the MENA region, which are underpinned by an independent, value-added research capability.

More than 2.9 million futures contracts have traded on Nasdaq Dubai’s equity derivatives market since it launched. Emaar Properties, Union Properties and DXB Entertainments are among the most heavily traded contracts.