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Egypt indexes inch higher in low volumes

CAIRO - Egypt’s main stock indexes tracked sideways on Wednesday, with local and retail interest focused on small and medium-sized companies, brokers said.

Volumes were light, as they have been all week, with foreign interest waning ahead of year-end holidays. Retail investors accounted for 74.2 percent of trade, stock exchange data showed.

“There is more activity in the small and medium caps, which is not giving as much momentum in the market. We saw a lot of fluctuations early in the day,” said Mohamed Tawfiq from Delta Rasmala Securities.

Tawfiq said over-the-counter trades exceeded 50 million Egyptian pounds ($9 million), out of a total of around 400 million pounds.

“If you discount the OTC you only have about 300 (million pounds), which is much lower than usual, even below what we are used to from the past few weeks,” he said.

The broad-based CIBC index added 0.87 percent to 279.0 points, while the benchmark CASE 30 index ended 0.18 percent higher at 4,331.88 points and the rival Hermes index edged up 0.14 percent to 405.68 points.

One of the leading stocks by turnover was Arab Real Estate Investment (Alco), with a total market capitalisation of 11.2 million pounds, which gained 9.8 percent to 2.80 pounds.

Shares in housing developer SODIC ended down 2.53 percent at 40.51 pounds. On Tuesday the firm said it expects demand for upper-income level housing to remain robust.

Among big caps, the biggest mover by turnover was Orascom Telecom, which gained 3.46 percent to 28.39 pounds after Fitch raised its rating on the firm’s subsidiary Tunisiana.

Traders said that the market had failed to breach the psychologically important 4,500 point mark on the CASE 30 last week and was languishing.