Market Report: Egyptian stocks see sluggish start after holidays

Speculative individuals edged the wider indexes up as institutions take temperature of political developments

Egypt's stock exchange saw sluggish trade when it restarted Tuesday after a four-day holiday weekend as large-scale investors stepped back from further political uncertainty leaving speculative buyers to pick up the slack.
The benchmark EGX30 index closed 0.14 per cent down at 4,989 points in a day marked by unusually low trade totalling just LE274 million.
"The market is choked and slow after the holidays," said Essam Moustafa, managing director of Premiere Securities.
Moustafa thinks a raft of contentious political issues -- from protests in Upper Egypt and ongoing corruption investigations, to rumoured changes to Egypt's gas supply to Israel and warming diplomatic relations with Iran -- have made institutions more cautious in their activity.
"Put these all together and institutions just can't figure out how the market is moving," he said.
The broader EGX70 and EGX100 rose 0.45 and 0.59 per cent respectively -- a sign of speculative trade in lower-cap firms by more daring individual investors. In line with recent weeks, individuals were responsible for slightly over half of trading volume.
Of 175 listed stocks, 82 gained and 80 declined with four sectors closing in the green: telecoms, banks, industrial goods and personal and household products.
"There are the defensive sectors where we find lots of individual investors becoming involved," explained Moustafa.
Gains for individual stocks were lower than last week, with Arab Polvara Spinning and Weaving seeing the day's largest climb of 7.26 per cent.
Telecom Egypt finished up 3.05 per cent and Mobinil gained 5.02 per cent ahead of profit reports due this week that analysts see as an important bellweather for Egypt's embattled economy.
Tuesday's biggest loser was Sidi Kerir Petrochemicals, down 9.73 per cent, while Ezz Steel continued its corruption-tainted plunge to shed a further 9.21 per cent.
Palm Hills Development finished down 3.09 per cent after an Egyptian court ruled its acquistion of 960,000 square metres of formerly state-owned land in a Cairo suburb had been illegal.
South Valley Cement, which reported a two-thirds drop in profits for 2010 compared to 2009 early on Tuesday, managed to edge up 1.13 per cent by the closing bell.
Egyptians made up 63 per cent of Bourse activity and were net-buyers to the tune of LE14.56 million. Non-Arab foreigners maintained their normal market share of just under a third, but offloaded a net LE12.35 million in stock.
"It's the natural time for them to be sellers," said Moustafa. "They were active buyers when the market reopened in late March so now it is time for them to make some profit."