Market Report: Egypt stocks dip as Friday fears build

Main index takes a tiny dip as exchange's largest firm sees sell-offs and youth coalition calls for another wave of weekend protests

Egyptian stocks slipped back into the red Wednesday after three sessions of gains, in trade subdued by last night's football clashes and marked by heavy interest in the Orascom stable.
The benchmark EGX30 dipped 0.02 per cent to 4,727 points, while the broader EGX70 -- whose speculative stocks typically before better when the main index is marginally down -- shed 0.5 per cent.
"This wasn't a real loss, stock trade today was stable," said Ashraf Adbel Aziz, head of institutions sales at Arabia Online Securities. "The sales that we did see were a result of yesterday's violence and the fears of further clashes during [Mubarak's] trial or on Friday."
On Tuesday night, Egyptian security forces attacked supporters of football team Ahly at their Cairo homeground, sparking clashes which left over 130 injured. Meanwhile, the Revolution Youth Union has called for a mass demonstration on the capital's Tahrir Square this Friday, with many predicting violence.
From a total of 169 shares traded on Wednesday, 47 rose in value and 108 declined, with gains and losses fairly evenly split between market sectors.
Total turnover was LE337.1 million, around a fifth taken up by Orascom Construction (OCI), which lost a further 0.11 per cent, still smarting from disappointing second quarter results.
"Foreign traders -- both in the region and outside -- played a larger role today," says Abdel Aziz. "It's possible they sold a lot of OCI shares."
As the exchange's largest firm by market capitalisation, OCI's losses played a major part in pushing the main index into the red.
It was a different story for sister company, Swiss-based Orascom Development Holding which became the day's biggest gainer, finishing up 9.25 per cent on news an appeal had overturned a two-year jail sentence handed to its chairman last month. Samih Sawiris had been convicted on accusations of stock price manipulation and providing incorrect financial data.
Much of the balance of the day's trade focused on shares in asset managers Citadel Capital, which finished up 5.96 per cent, and beleaguered propery developer the Talaat Moustafa Group.
The latter this week announced LE1.2 billion of new sales for the first quarter of 2011, spurring a 2.28 per cent rise that pulled the entire real estate sector into the green.
Non-Egyptian Arabs played a larger role than normal, contributing 11.4 per cent of trade and ending up the day's sole net-buyers to the tune of LE52.18 million.
Exchanges across the rest of the Arab world were divided between modest gains and losses, with Saudi Arabia's Bourse leading the pack, up 1.04 per cent.