Market Report: Egypt's major stocks slip 0.1 per cent amid unrest and Friday fears

Main index takes its fifth consecutive loss with Bourse seeing thin, mainly speculative trade as investors eye upcoming protests

Egyptian stocks continued to feel the impact of unrest in the provinces as the main index slipped further into the red Tuesday, marking its fifth consecutive day of losses, despite the partial return of speculative buyers which cushioned the broader market.
The benchmark EGX30 finished the session down 0.09 per cent at 4,771 points, a mild loss compared to Monday and Tuesday when it tumbled over 2 per cent each session. A sliver of help came from gains in opening trade, when the index rode above the 4,220 mark.
"The growth at the beginning of the session was driven by small trading volumes on some of the market leaders, it doesn't represent the general direction of the market, " says Mostafa Badra, a capital market expert.
Badra says the recent wave of violence has combined with political uncertainties to squeeze an already troubled exchange.
On Sunday, large-scale clashes between protesters and police in Egypt's northern Damietta governorate left two people dead and three injured; meanwhile at the othee end of the country in Aswan, police forcefully dispersed crowds demonstrating against the killing of a boatman allegedly shot by a police officer last week.
"The market continues to react negatively to this wave of unrest," said Badra. Protests planned for central Cairo this coming Friday against amendments to Egypt's constitution were also making investors nervous, he added.
From Tuesday's 172 listed stocks, 88 gained and 72 declined, a mixed performance that kept overall losses from reaching the scale of previous days, and drove the broader EGX70 up half a per cent.
The EGX30 was also stabilised by the performance of Orascom Telecom (OT), a high-cap share that gained 1.28 per cent and was the day's most traded, with LE27 million of turnover. The company announced the resignation of its chief executive on Monday.
"The news about OT's chief apparently stimulated interest in the share, as it signals a possible share split will happen soon," said Badra.
Modest gains for Lecico, up 1.3 per cent, and real estate developer SODIC, up 5.5 per cent, also helped pare losses.
But it was lower-cap stocks like Misr Hotels and TransOceans Tours, both up more than 7.5 per cent, that saw the benefit from an uptick in spectulative buys.
Individual investors, who typically favour the cheaper and more volatile stocks, made up almost exactly two-thirds of the day's trade. Egyptian indivuals, who made up the vast majority of this sector, bought a net LE9.34 million in stocks.Foreigners, in contrast, net-sold a hefty LE24.2m on Tuesday, as activity slipped from their usual third to some 20 per cent.
Turnover remained in the doldrums, barely ticking over LE177 million, in a sign of the slowdown that has brokerages cutting staff and Bourse authorities taking pay reductions.
"In previous months we saw average volumes of 300 to 400 million, now we don't even see it grow above 200," said Badra.