Dubai’s DFM plans to start short selling in ‘coming months’

Dubai Financial Market PJSC said it plans to introduce regulated short-selling in the “coming months,” the latest sign of efforts by stock exchanges in the Gulf to boost trading. The bourse will approve lenders and borrowers for regulated short-selling in a selected list of eligible securities, the United Arab Emirates’ only publicly traded exchange said in a statement Wednesday. DFM has consulted on its operational model and is making technical enhancements to facilitate the trades, it said, without specifying a start date. Last week, Abu Dhabi’s stock exchange said it was meeting local investors to discuss introducing short-selling early this year as an attempt to increase liquidity. In October, the UAE’s Securities and Commodities Authority held talks with local exchanges about transferring to them oversight of some financial instruments, including margin trading and short selling. Most short selling is done by hedge funds and institutional investors to cushion their positions against falling stock prices or to bet that shares have risen too high. (Filipe Pacheco/Bloomberg)