The Dubai stock market slid in early trading on Wednesday, snapping nine days of gains, while Saudi Arabia dropped as some of its stocks traded ex-dividend.
The Dubai index slipped 0.2 percent, with Emirates Integrated Telecommunications sliding 1.2 percent and Ajman Bank losing 3.6 percent.
Emirates NBD said it would sell 127.5 million shares in Network International for proceeds of 554.5 million pounds ($724.95 million) through a secondary listing of the shares on the London Stock Exchange and to Mastercard .
The firm continues to hold a 25.5 percent stake in the payments processor. The stock traded flat.
Saudi Arabia's index was down 0.2 percent, with Saudi Basic Industries Corp falling 1.4 percent to its biggest one-day loss in over two months, as the stock traded ex-dividend.
National Gypsum Company, which also traded ex-dividend, slid 4.1 percent and was the biggest loser on the index.
Samba Financial Group was down 0.6 percent. On Monday, Qatar filed lawsuits against three banks including Samba Financial Group and First Abu Dhabi Bank, accusing the trio of overseas currency manipulation which caused billions of dollars of damage to Qatar's economy.
The Abu Dhabi index edged down 0.1 percent with Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank declining 1 percent. Last week, the lender and First Abu Dhabi Bank denied they were in merger talks after a news report said the emirate was considering combining them. First Abu Dhabi was flat.
But energy firm Dana Gas increased 0.5 percent after saying its first-quarter production rose by 6 percent, helped by its de-bottlenecking project in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
The Qatar's blue-chip index decreased 0.3 percent, led by a 1.1 percent drop in Qatar National Bank.
The Gulf's largest lender reported a first-quarter net profit of 3.56 billion Qatar riyals ($978.02 million), while EFG Hermes forecasted a higher net profit of 3.71 billion riyals. ($1 = 0.7649 pounds) ($1 = 3.6400 Qatar riyals)
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