Female share traders on the United Arab Emirates (UAE)‎ stock exchange \

Abstract EN

This research investigates the perception of fe,ale investors on Dubai Financial Market(DFM) and Abu Dhabi Securities Market (ADSM) on a a host of issues.

These include their perceptions to quality of earnings reported by the management of the listed companies, the independence of the external auditors who certify the financial statement of the listed companies, the reliability and usefulness of these financial statements for assissting share investors to choose the shares they buy or sell.

To this effect, the researcher has designed a questionnaire survey around these issucs.Thc questionnaire was distributed among quite a number of female investors.However, only 78 of them have managed to complete it and return it to the researcher.Thus, the response rate, and therefore, the sample size, of this study is small.As such, the conclusions of this study can not be generalized.Rather, it is only.

applicable to this sample.Nonetheless, the novelty of this study is in its attempt to solicit the opinion of female investors on this topical issue.This in turn sheds more light and narrow the literature gap that exists on the subject. The overall conclusions of this study tend to confirm the conclusions of a previous and a similar study by the author on male investors.Thus, while the majority of female share traders cast doubts on the quality of profits reported by the listed companies in their annual financial statements, they believe that these statements are relatively reliable and are useful for making investment decisions.Likewise, female investors have also expressed confidence in external auditors of these listed companies. This research has important policy implications for the strengthening of the stock market of UAE.Tightening regulations for more transparency, educating share dealers and encouraging institutional investment are most vital in this direction.Furthermore, the research has identified some research agenda for future.Investigating the issue at the Pan Gulf Countries and researching how male and female investors have responded to the current share price crisis are interesting questions to address.