Cairo – Mubasher: The Egyptian Exchange (EGX) saw a steady slide in total market value, stocks' performance, and investors' appetite for buying during May 2016.
The benchmark EGX30 put an end to a three-month winning streak, settling 3.73% lower at 7,483.65 points against 7,773.23 points a month earlier.
Along with a scene void of positive momentums and data, the wreckage of EgyptAir flight MS804 relatively dragged the main index lower during FY16 fifth month, said Ahmed Abdel Hamid, managing director at Watheeqa Securities Brokerage.
Moreover, a tone of caution and time-biding had been reigning Cario bourse, namely by the end of the month, imposing all in all a sideways trend amid poorer liquidity ratios, Abdel Hamid added.
EgyptAir flight MS804 crashed into the Mediterranean with 56 passengers and a ten-member crew. Investigators are still trying to figure out whether MS804 was brought down by terrorism or a technical fault.
On the same negative note, other indices were red-colored starting with the small and mid-cap index EGX70 that edged down 0.13% month-on-month to 373.83 points from 374.32 points.
The broader index EGX100 also lost 6.18 points, or 0.78%, to 783.81 points versus 789.99 points last month.
The equal-weighted index EGX50 stood at 1,383.82, down 4.19% from 1,444.31 points by the end of April 2016.
Total market value fell by EGP 12.9 billion ($1.45 billion) to close at EGP 400.45 billion from EGP 413.34 billion posted in the previous month.
Nationals were net sellers by EGP 1.5 billion, while foreign and Arab investors were net buyers by EGP 1.25 billioYn and EGP 288 million respectively.
Earlier, Cairo bourse announced that since the beginning of 2016 non-Arab and Arab investors carried out purchases at EGP 896.85 million and EGP 1 billion after all canceled transactions were casted out.
Tracking investors' category, initiations had the lion's share after conducting 73.49% of transactions over the last month, while individuals carried out 26.51% of aggregate transactions.
Trading value reached EGP 26.6 billion after 3.95 billion shares were traded over 424,000 transactions compared with EGP 20.2 billion with 5.37 billion shares changing hands in 508 transaction in April.
OTMT lead the most active stocks in terms of trading volume after more than 822.3 million shares were traded at EGP 598.8 million. Its quote closed 1.4% higher to EGP 0.71 from EGP 0.70 a month earlier.
Translated Ahmed Elsayed Ali
