Most Middle East markets rose, extending gains as investors bet on a sustained post-Ramadan rally.
NBK climbed 5.6 percent to its highest finish since Oct. 12, 2008. The lender's shares are up 17 percent since a newspaper report on Aug. 19 said at least two NBK shareholders had received offers to sell a stake in the bank.
Islamic lender Boubyan Bank, in which NBK holds a 40 percent stake, according to Reuters data, rose 3.5 percent.
The Kuwaiti index climbed 0.2 percent to 6,728 points.
Dubai's index hit a three-month high. Emaar Properties climbed 3.1 percent, Arabtec gained 4.7 percent and Dubai Financial Market added 5.3 percent. This trio accounted for two-thirds of index volumes.
"There is a concentration on the bluechips and high beta names like DFM, Emaar and Arabtec," said Marwan Shurrab, vice-president and chief trader at Gulfmena Alternative Investments. "Investors are interested in these stocks after they were severely over-sold going into Ramadan."
The benchmark climbed 2 percent to 1,569 points as volumes hit a two-month high, doubling Sunday's total.
"These gains are sustainable - we were always talking about a rush at the end of Ramadan from investors taking positions ahead of a likely rally after Eid," added Shurrab. "International sentiment has helped us and a positive open to European markets brought in extra volumes to our markets."
Saudi Arabia's bourse reached a four-week high as bullish investors bet on a sustained US economic recovery.
The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) surged 0.59 percent to 6,30633 points. The sector activity for the day was mostly positive with 13 out of 15 sectors closing with gains ranging from 0.5 percent by the Cement sector and Retail sector to 2.02 percent by the Industrial Investment sector. On the other hand the losing sectors were Transport sector with 0.02 percent and Energy & Utilities sector with 0.09 percent. The overall market breadth for the day was negative with 83 advancers against 33 decliners giving it an AD ratio of 2.51, the Financial Transaction House (FTH) said in its daily market commentary.
The liquidity for the day reached SR1.79 billion as compared to Sunday's liquidity of SR1.56 billion.
Egyptian investors were more wary, with the country's main index dipping 0.1 percent ahead of the Eid Al-Fitr holidays. Regional markets will be closed for varying periods from Tuesday until mid next week.
Orascom Telecom fell 1.9 percent and Talaat Moustafa dropped 0.8 percent.
Masraf Al-Rayan fell 1.3 percent as Qatar's index made its first loss for eight sessions. It dropped 0.4 percent to 7,436 points, easing from the previous day's 17-week high. Qatar's relative strength index (RSI) reached 77 on Sunday. A value above 70 indicates a market is overbought.
Yet Qatar's uptrend should continue in the medium term, said Hani Girgis, assistant chief dealer at Dlala brokerage, although the index will see some profit taking around 7,500 points.
The benchmark could hit 8,000 by year-end if foreigners put further cash into the market, Girgis said, predicting third- and fourth-quarter results would support such a move.
"Profit taking was expected ahead of Eid," he added.
- With input from agencies
