ABU DHABI, Feb 18 (Reuters) - The Nasdaq Dubai exchange launched equity index futures on Sunday for the main indexes of Dubai Financial Market and the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, a top official said.
The new instruments could help to attract fresh money to the exchanges by giving investors more opportunity to hedge. Nasdaq Dubai began trading single-stock futures for shares in some of the United Arab Emirates' biggest companies in late 2016.
"This is one of the templates for stock markets in the UAE and how they can complement each other," Hamed Ahmed Ali, chief executive of Nasdaq Dubai, told reporters on Sunday.
Trading volumes in many of the single-stock futures have been modest since they were launched. However, Ali said investors' response to them had been encouraging, with 17 UAE-listed companies currently covered, up from an original seven, and the number of brokerages involved rising to nine from four.
Nasdaq Dubai's website showed Dubai index futures, due to expire on June 21, trading at 3,328 on Sunday morning, while the underlying index was down 0.6 percent at 3,310 points. Abu Dhabi index futures were at 4,560 while the index was up 0.2 percent at 4,586 points.
(Reporting by Stanley Carvalho; Writing by Andrew Torchia)
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