Market Report: Egypt's stocks slip in a calm session, despite politics

While Egypt's headline index dipped, all other indexes saw marginal rises as investors engaged in various ownership swap deals

Egypt's main market index dipped by 0.15 per cent, recording 4.170.75 points as “Commercial International Bank's (CiB) stock, one of the market leaders, drove the market downwards after it announced its financial results today, along with uncertainties about its facilities granted to the disputed factory MOBCO,” says Issa Fathy, vice president of the securities division in Cairo's Chamber of Commerce.
CIB was one of the big losers in EGX30 listed stocks: it plunged 2.2 per cent.
Foreigner investors, who are mostly concerned with trading on CiB shares, were net sellers to the tune of LE143.5 million, while Egyptians were net buyers at LE58.8 million.
CiB, the country's largest listed bank, reported a consolidated bottom line of LE1.065 billion in the first nine months of 2011, a drop of 25 per cent on the same period in 2010.The fall in profits is due mainly to a surge in booked provisions along with a significant drop in net investment.
Broader indices did not follow Egypt's benchmark, as all saw rises, with the EGX70 up 1.06 per cent, EGX100 up 0.75 per cent and EGX20 up 0.22 per cent.
The broader index, EGX70, gained 1.06 per cent. “This index is rebounding after it saw significant drops on Sunday and Monday of this week; prices are very luring to investors,” Fathy said.
The EGX70, an index including small and medium shares, preferred by Egyptian investors, lost around 45 points in three days since last Thursday. It started to recoup its losses in today and yesterday's sessions.
Regardless of the slump in CiB shares, other high-caps also took a southern direction as Orascom Construction Industries (OCI), Orascom Telecom and Telecom Egypt fell by 0.1 per cent, 0.3 per cent and 0.07 per cent respectively.
On the other hand, Citadel Capital rose by 0.6 per cent.Citadel Capital was the main reason behind today's higher turnover; it made up more than 44 per cent of the day's volume (LE157.3 million).
“This is a clear ownership swap deal. My view is that foreigners are clearing their positions in the stock because it hasn't been as profitable as it was expected.”
Four major deals were undertaken on Citadel, the biggest of which was worth LE78.6 million.
Prominent real estate stocks went up: Talaat Mustafa Group (TMG), Palm Hills andSODIC rose by 1.8 per cent, 0.8 per cent and 2.2 per cent respectively.
From 168 listed stocks, 106 went up and 43 declined in a session that achieved a turnover of LE352.1 million.