NYSE Euronext has taken a 25 per cent equity stake in Qatar’s stock market, stoking the three-way battle for regional financial supremacy in the petrodollar-fuelled Gulf region.

The transatlantic stock market operator paid $250m for its interest in Doha Securities Market as part of a larger strategic alliance aimed at developing the tiny, natural-gas-rich state’s bourse into an internationally integrated cash and derivatives market with international links and , with regional growth ¬ambitions.