CAIRO - Gripped by a bearish sentiment, Egyptian stocks fell on Wednesday amid low volumes, traders said. The country's benchmark index EGX 30 shed 1.86 per cent to 4,986.46 points, they added. The broader indexes EGX 70 and EGX 100 were also in the red falling by 1.63 and 1.38 per cent to 572.75 and 897.55 points respectively. Volume totalled LE462.8 million ($77.8 million), according to Bourse data. Egypt's heavyweight Commercial International Bank (CIB) slid 4.4 per cent to LE27.37 per share. EFG-Hermes, the country's biggest investment bank by market value, gained 0.74 per cent to LE18.97 per share. Orascom Construction Industries slipped by 1.15 per cent to LE241.23 per share. Orascom Telecom, the largest Arab mobile operator by subscribers, shed 1.43 per cent LE4.13 per share. Mobinil slipped 0.29 per cent to LE137.94 per share. Talaat Moustafa, the country's biggest listed builder, dipped by 1.76 per cent to LE3.9 per share. Globally, upbeat earnings from companies including chip maker Intel lifted stocks and boosted appetite for riskier assets, driving commodities higher and the Australian dollar to a 29-year high versus the dollar, according to Reuters. Intel posted higher than expected sales and forecast quarterly revenues well above Wall Street's estimates, while the world's biggest cosmetics group, L'Oreal, and carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen also came in with robust figures. Of the 45 S&P 500 .SPX companies that have reported first-quarter earnings so far, 79 percent have either beaten or met market expectations while the remainder came in below forecasts, data from Thomson Reuters StarMine showed. Japan's Nikkei average rose 1.8 per cent, snapping a three-day losing run, and the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 rose 1.5 per cent. World equities measured by Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) All-Country World Index advanced 1.2 per cent, extending the previous session's 0.5 percent rise and further recovering from Monday's 1.6 per cent loss.
