(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Qatar stocks rose sharply yesterday on improved oil prices and corporate dividend payouts. The main index jumped 162.47 points, or 1.37 percent, to close at 12,062.
Industrials and real estate were the best performing sectors. Industrials Index rose 1.94 percent and real estate soared 1.58 percent.
International Islamic, Industries Qatar, Gulf International, Barwa and Vodafone were the top gainers. Rising oil prices boosted the market sentiments, industrial, real estate and banking stocks gave the push to the market, analysts noted.
International Islamic rose 3.35 percent and Industries Qatar edged 2.35 percent up. Gulf International soared 3.20 percent and Vodafone gained 2.55 percent.
Gulf International was the most active stock with a traded value of QR113.5m, or 27.2 percent of the market's total traded value. Vodafone Qatar led the trading volume with 2.19 million shares, or 21.5 percent of the total.
Total trading volume rose to over 10 million shares from 8.48 million shares, and total traded value rose to QR417m from QR374.50m. Market capitalisation rose to QR656bn from the previous session's QR648bn.
Elsewhere, Saudi index jumped 3.0 percent in heavy trade to 9,144 points, breaking above chart resistance on the late December peak at 8,948 points; the next resistance is on the 100-day average, now at 9,436 points, Reuters reported.
Dubai's index jumped 4.5 percent to close at 3,840 points, its biggest daily gain in six weeks. Trading volume also rose in a positive technical sign.
Conglomerate Dubai Investments led gains and surged 13.8 percent after it said its board had proposed a higher dividend for 2014: 12 percent cash and 6 percent bonus shares. This compared with a 7 percent cash dividend and 7 percent bonus shares in the year-earlier period.
Abu Dhabi's index jumped 2.2 percent on the back of large banks. National Bank of Abu Dhabi surged 4.3 percent, First Gulf Bank rose 2.9 percent and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank added 3.2 percent. The sector has reported generally strong fourth-quarter results.
Markets in Kuwait and Oman added 1.0 and 0.2 percent respectively. Egypt's bourse edged 0.6 percent down.
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