Bourse ends week up on El-Sisi candidacy talk

EGX30 climbs 1.13% as investors react positively to report of Field Marshal El-Sisi presidential candidacy and institutions increase market share

Egypt's main index climbed 1.13 percent on Thursday to close at 7,426 points, recouping losses prompted by new listing rules earlier in the week.
The EGX30 had fallen 1.6 percent on Tuesday after the board of the Egyptian Stock Exchange and state watchdog Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) approved new rules that only allow companies with at least five million shares and LE50 million in capital to be listed.
The ensuing stock split led investors in the main index to rush to the broader EGX70 index to buy the new split shares at low prices, Eissa Fathi, vice head of the securities division at Cairo Chamber of Commerce, told Ahram Online.
The main index was buoyed by an interview published on Wednesday by Kuwait El-Siyasi newspaper, in which Egypt's popular defence minister, Abdel-Fatah El-Sisi, reportedly announced he intended to run for president in this year's upcoming election.
The announcement was dismissed by the spokesman of Egypt's armed forces on Thursday as "journalistic speculation."
"Nonetheless this report was the main factor moving the market today" a trader at a Cairo-based investment management firm told Ahram Online.
Institutional investors were particularly active, accounting for 27 percent of market activity and at a session which witnessed a total turnover of LE939.6 million.
"This is manifest in the high turnover experienced by Eastern Tobacco, an institutional stock" a trader at a Cairo-based investment management firm told Ahram Online.
Eastern Tobacco's turnover, which reached LE55.6 million and propelled the share up 4.77 percent to trade at LE140.47, was surpassed in the EGX30 index only by Orascom Telecom Media and Technology Holding (OTMT), which registered LE79.3 million.
OTMT rose 0.84 percent to close at LE1.20. Global Telecom Holding also gained 1.6 percent to trade at LE5.08 per share.
Market bellwether Commercial International Bank (CIB) inched up by 0.09 percent to close at LE33.04 per share.
Cairo-based investment bank EFG-Hermes saw its share price rise 1.43 percent to LE11.37 per share.
In the real estate sector, Palm Hills Development Company led the gains with a 2.62 percent rise to LE3.13 per share, followed by Six of October Development & Investment (SODIC), which rose 2.22 percent to LE23.49 per share. TMG Holding inched up by 0.70 percent, closing at LE7.16 per share.
Egyptian and foreign investors were net-buyers, seizing LE3.6 million and LE9.3 million net worth of shares, respectively, while Arab investors were net-sellers.
The broader EGX70 index rose 1.38 percent.
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