Saudi Arabia's stock market rose on Tuesday, extending gains for a third straight session, while Air Arabia aided a Dubai rebound.
In Saudi Arabia, the benchmark index rose 0.5% with Al Rajhi Bank and Saudi Telecom gaining 0.9% and 0.7% respectively.
Mediterranean and Gulf Cooperative Insurance and Reinsurance (MedGulf) rose 0.8%. On Sunday, the insurer signed a health insurance contract with Saudi Electricity.
Elsewhere, Basic Chemical Industries increased 0.5%, a day after said it had completed 35% of the work on its chlorine production project at Jubail Industrial City.
However, Jarir Marketing declined 1.6% as the stock traded ex-dividend.
Dubai's index opened up 0.7%, driven by a 1.2% rise in blue-chip developer Emaar Properties and a 2.2% gain in Air Arabia.
On Monday, the budget airliner said that it had signed a $14 billion Airbus A320neo order at the Dubai airshow.
Arabtec Holding jumped 4.2%, a day after its biggest fall in 6 months following third-quarter losses.
On Tuesday, the contractor said its Arabtec Construction unit had won a 366 million dirham ($100 million) construction contract in Egypt.
In Abu Dhabi, the index dropped 0.2% with market heavyweight First Abu Dhabi Bank losing 0.3% and Aldar Properties down 0.9%
Earlier this month, Aldar reported a 8% fall in third-quarter net profit to 387 million dirhams, compared with 420 million dirhams year ago.
Qatar's index dropped 0.2%, led by a 0.5% fall in the Gulf's biggest lender Qatar National Bank and a 1.1% slide in Qatar International Islamic Bank. ($1 = 3.6727 UAE dirham)
(Reporting by Shamsuddin Mohd in Bengaluru; Editing by Alexander Smith) ((shamsuddin.mohd@thomsonreuters.com; +918067497252;))
