Market Report: Egypt shares make a clean break

Start of a fresh fiscal year and a mainly trouble-free weekend encourage low-key trade, powering a further rise for the stock index

Egyptian stocks continued their recovery Sunday, edging up nearly one per cent as security concerns waned and investors took fresh equity positions at the start of the country's fiscal year.
The EGX30 benchmark finished up 0.85 per cent at 5,418.69 points in a day marked by low market turnover of just LE366.2 million. Active interest in lower-cap stock helped drive the broader EGX70 up 1.5 per cent.
"The market was completing what happened last Thursday when we saw a combination of prices reaching an incentive level after the clashes on Tuesday and Wednesday, and a strong signal about security with the go-ahead of the Ahly-Zamalek football match," said Issa Fathy, vice president of the securities division at Cairo's Chamber of Commerce.
He believes a trouble-free Friday encouraged foreigners to re-engage, although numbers were restrained due to the Sunday holiday.
"People see the government is able to keep security -- and security is essential for investors, whether in Egypt or elsewhere," said Fathy.
Top of the pecking order was Ismailia Misr Poultry,whose shares leapt 67.2 per cent following the division of the larger company into a industrial farming concern with the same name and a construction firm, Al Ismailia Al-Gadida for Development and Urbanization.
Only Ismailia's poultry stock was traded on Sunday, offered at a price calculated by financial advisers. It was valued much higher by the market, soaring from LE10.8 per share to LE17.08 by the close of trade.
Other firms saw more traditional gains -- from 177 listed companies on Sunday, 130 rose in value and 36 declined.
"Investors and state funds are starting to buy after they were pressured to sell last week to make profits before the end of Egypt's financial year," said Mohamed Seddiek, head of research at Prime Brokerage told Reuters. With July underway, some have reversed their behaviour.
Though they made up just 8.6 per cent of the market, foreigners were net-buyers of LE14.83 million in equities -- outpacing the net-sales of Egyptians who represented 89.8 per cent and offloaded LE14.34m.
Shares in Arab Cotton Ginning continued to reap the rewards of the firm's 127 per cent rise in net profits, adding a further 4.4 per cent to Thursday's 4.41 per cent upturn. Investment bank Pioneers Holding kept a similar pace, rising 5.62 per cent.
News that Egyptian appliance maker Olympic is within of month of inking a takeover agreement with Sweden's Electrolux spurred a wider rise of 1.55 per cent in the household products sector, says Fathy.
Classic market behaviour explained the day's top loser, AJWA for Food Industries. Investors scrambled for the stock last week, driving it up 9.98 per cent as the rest of the market faltered. But on Sunday, profit taking was all, as sustained sell-offs slashed its value by 6.98 per cent.