Egypt's main stock market index, the EGX 30, unexpectedly dropped 0.4%, closing at 6735 and loosing its early morning gains. "The market followed weak European markets overnight," said Omar Darwish, a financial analyst with CICapital. This comes a day after the marked surged by more than 1%."Yesterday's exaggerated rally was quickly taken advantage of today," said Darwish. “The retreat of the transactions volume is very obvious due to the higher selling pressure from local investors and individuals,” a report from CICapital reported today. A total of 82.110 million shares were exchanged on the market today, at a total value of LE646.959 million. “The parliamentary elections and the festive season are the main reason trading volume shrunk by 8.5% compared to last month,” said Mona Mansour, head of research at CICapital. Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) scored a slight decrease of 0.07% dropping to LE267.04, while EFG-Hermes fell by 0.5% and Commercial International Bank (CIB) declined by 0.48% to close at LE41.8. Foreigners and Arabs were inclined towards selling today, with a buy/sell difference of LE1.92 million. Nationals sold almost the same amounts they bought. They dominated 71.51% of total trading, while foreign and Arab investors accounted for 24.46%. CICapital advised to retain equities like Orascom Construction, Credit Agricole and Delta for Sugar, saying that they are the best choices for this month. Most sectors are down except for personal, household products and core resources. The construction sector was the most active, dominating 19.54% of trade, or over EGP 87,900,993,794. It was followed by telecommunications that controlled 15.22% of action, or more than EGP 68,463,805,012. Financial Banks accounted for 12.49% of trades, or above EGP 56,202,276,894.
