The Egyptian stock exchange ended the week of trading slightly lower after a heavy volume of sales by Egyptian and Arab investors yesterday in response to positive news in the market. The indices rose approximately 1.5 percent at the beginning of trading yesterday due to a number of factors, including the agreement reached between Orascom Telecom and France Telecom to resolve the dispute that had persisted for years between the two companies over Mobilnil and President Mubarak’s attendance of a cabinet meeting yesterday.
The leading index for actively traded shares, EGX20, finished the trading period with a decline of .32 percent, losing 17 points to end at 7573 points. Meanwhile, the price index fell by .8 percent, seeing a decline in the prices of 130 securities and an increase in the prices of 36 others.
Shares of Orascom Telecom jumped at the beginning of trading by nearly 4 percent, finishing at LE8.61 after reaching LE8.79, the share’s highest price since 28 October 2009. Heavy trading of Orascom accompanied the rising share price. In total, 54.2 million shares were traded for total of LE408.3 million.
The market also saw the International Finance Corporation purchasing 16 percent of the shares of Portland, a cement company based in Alexandria, for a total of LE138 million. The deal follows an agreement between the International Finance Corporation and Titan, the parent company of Portland, stipulating that it invest approximately 80 million Euros in the cement company.
Yesterday’s session saw a noticeable amount of trading due to the success of the deal, said Mutasim el-Shahidi, managing director of a securities firm. Indices rose considerably at the beginning of trading, spurred by the agreement between France Telecom and Orascom Telecom, as well as the optimism resulting from Mubarak’s attendance at the cabinet meeting yesterday.
Traders began cashing out mid-way through the session, causing the index to close at a loss, he said. This is the natural result of earning profit and short-term trading after a rise in the market.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
