Egypt's main index climbed by a further 0.75 percent on Thursday to reach 5,488 points, its highest level since security forces dispersed anti-government sit-ins in a violent crackdown a month ago. This marks the fifth consecutive day of gains for the EGX30, which rose by 0.7 percent on Wednesday in spite of a double suicide car bomb attack by militants, which killed six soldiers in the North Sinai town of Rafah. "The Egyptian bourse seems to have developed a resilience to episodes of violence," Ashraf Abdel-Aziz, head of institutional sales at the Cairo-based Arabia Online Securities, told Ahram Online about the persisting upward trend. Various parts of Egypt have been racked by episodes of violence since the interim government, installed by the country's armed forces after the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, cracked down on Morsi supporters on 14 August. Abdel-Aziz referred to the strong turnover, which on Thursday reached a total of LE534 million, as an indicator of investor appetite in the market, along with the distribution of trading among all sectors and share sizes. Egyptian investors, who accounted for 77 percent of the market, were the main net-buyers, followed by Arab investors, while other foreigners, who make up 15 percent of the market, were net-sellers to the tune of LE16.3 million. Most of the EGX30 stocks were gainers, including blue chip Commercial International Bank which rose 1.20 percent. Investment bank EFG-Hermes gained 2.74 percent, achieving the highest turnover of LE62.5 million, as it made a comeback from a hard fall precipitated by its exclusion from the MSCI Egypt index on 30 May. Property shares TMG Holding and Six October Development and Investment gained 1.22 percent and 2 percent, respectively, while Palm Hills Development Company fell 0.44 percent. Orascom Telecom also dropped 0.45 percent. The broader EGX70 index inched up 0.3 percent. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/81458.aspx
