(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Qatar Exchange index gained 102.85 points, or 0.76 percent, yesterday when trading closed at 13,699.51 points.
The trading value dropped 55.09 percent to QR429.73m from Sunday's QR956.75m.
The trading volume dropped 44.31 percent to 9,744,733 shares from 4,707 transactions compared to the previous day's 17,499,797 shares from 8,467 transactions.
The market capitalisation increased to QR725.835bn from Sunday's QR721.181bn.
Banking and finance sector index gained 1.71 percent with all banks noting fair gains, barring Ahli Bank which remained unchanged. Insurance and industries indices dropped slightly.
Qatar Nation Bank share gained 3.5 percent when it closed at QR197 while Qatar Islamic Bank was up by 2.7 percent to QR118.90 yesterday.
From the 43 listed companies, 39 saw trading activity yesterday. From these, 23 advanced, 12 went down and four remained unchanged.
Meanwhile, property firms, led by Dubai's Emaar Properties which has said it will float its malls unit in September, helped lift stock markets in the United Arab Emirates on Monday, while the advance of Saudi Arabia's bourse slowed.
Dubai's main index rose 1.5 percent as Emaar, the emirate's biggest listed developer, jumped 4.5 percent to Dh11.65, a fresh six-year high; trading volume in the stock was the highest since April 2010. However, Emaar closed well off its intra-day peak of 12.00 dirhams.
The stock had already soared 8.8 percent on Sunday after the announcement of the initial public offer, which will be one of the largest equity sales in the Middle East since 2008, underlining Dubai's recovery from a credit crisis that forced many state-linked developers to stall projects.
The firm had initially revealed in March its intention to sell up to 25 percent of the unit in an offer likely to raise Dh8 to Dh9bn ($2.18-$2.45bn). It will use proceeds from the sale to pay a special dividend to its shareholders.
Abu Dhabi's benchmark rose 0.9 percent as that emirate's largest listed developer, Aldar Properties, added 1.8 percent after announcing a sale of a residential tower for an undisclosed value. Another Abu Dhabi-listed developer, Ras Al Khaimah Properties, climbed 0.9 percent.
"Aldar is now entering a period of transformation that should underpin a rerating of the shares," BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research said in a report.
It cited a strong delivery pipeline of prime leasing assets, a revival of off-plan property sales in Abu Dhabi, and the rising value of Aldar's land bank on the back of higher transaction values.
Meanwhile, Qatar's bourse continued to recover from a 3.1 percent drop at the end of last week that was caused by one-off selling by foreign funds. The Doha index rose 0.8 percent on the back of banking stocks.
Islamic lender Masraf Al Rayan added 2.9 percent, Qatar National Bank rose 1.8 percent and Qatar Islamic Bank climbed 2.3 percent.
Saudi Arabia's main index, which has been in an uptrend since the kingdom's regulator said in July it would open the market to direct foreign investment early next year, added just 0.04 percent.
Both banks and petrochemicals, the two major sectors which had led growth in the last few weeks, pulled back.
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