Cairo – Mubasher: EGX indices collectively finished Sunday’s trading session in the red territory on Arab and foreign investors’ selling pressure.
The main gauge skidded 1.36%, or 105.68 points, to the mark of 7,650.62 points.
Waleed Hilal, Deputy Chairman of Egyptian Group for Securities Brokerage said the benchmark’s upward trend partially hindered after Beltone’s bid to buy CI Capital was cancelled, or more accurately after CIB decided not to extend the deadline of that buy offer. This move led OTMT and CIB to end the session lower by 6% and 2% respectively, the analyst added.
Most blue-chip stocks saw a slide ranging from 0.8% to 5.7% including CIB, OTMT, Juhyana, SODIC, GTH, TMG and OCI. Meanwhile, the only two advancers were EFG-Hermes and Telecom Egypt with a rise of 2.01% and 1.06% respectively.
Cairo bourse is forecast to re-target higher levels after the dead end of Beltone’s bid passes by, namely that today’s decline is not associated with high trading values at EGP 312 million compared with EGP 600 million over the previous sessions, Hilal said.
With 162.5 million shares changing hands, market turnover reached 312 million. Out of 161 traded stocks, 92 ones moved down; 28 went up; and 41 one stayed at their previous levels.
The small and mid-cap EGX70 inched down 0.09% to 372.82 points.
Likewise, the broader index EGX70 fell 0.34% to 789.14 points and the equal-weighted index was 0.92% down to 1,398.96 points.
Total market value lost EGP 3.4 billion ($383 million) to EGP 405.9 billion from EGP 409.3 billion registered a session earlier.
Foreign and Arab investors were net sellers by EGP 19.2 million and EGP 16.3 million respectively, while nationals were net buyers by EGP 35.5 million.
