** Shares of Dubai Financial Market are down almost 1.7 pct in early trade after its Q1 net profit dropped by more than half.

** DFM, the only listed bourse in the Gulf, reported a quarterly net profit of 48.9 mln dirhams ($13.31 mln) vs 102.3 mln dirhams a year earlier.

** Trading value slumped by 57.2 pct in Q1 from a year earlier to 20.4 bln dirhams.

** The Dubai index  is up 0.15 pct. ($1 = 3.6730 UAE dirham)

(Reporting by Saeed Azhar; Editing by Ghaida Ghantous) ((Saeed.Azhar@thomsonreuters.com; +971 44536787; Reuters Messaging: saeed.azhar.reuters.com@reuters.net))