Egypt's stocks continued to be impacted by a profit-taking run that is driving down the main EGX30 index by 2.6 percent to 7,859 points. "This decline was supposed to happen last week, but as the investors tended to buy following the cabinet reshuffle on Thursday, they are taking profits now," said Eissa Fathy, vice head of the securities division at the Cairo Chamber of Commerce. The broader index EGX70 also shed 2.8 percent in a session that saw a daily turnover of listed securities worth some LE920.6 million. "I can attribute the losses to the intensified Ukraine tensions, which hit most of the global stocks," Fathy deemed. On Monday, global stocks tumbled as tension over Russia's military advance into Ukraine and possible sanctions by Western governments. In Europe, Germany's DAX sank 2.4 percent to 9,455.1 and France's CAC-40 shed 1.6 percent to 4,337.71. Britain's FTSE 100 lost 1.3 percent to 6,723.72. On Wall Street, futures for the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 indexes were off by an unusually large 0.8 percent and 0.9 percent respectively. In Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index dropped 1.3 percent to 14,652.23 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down 1.5 percent to 22,500.67. Exchanges in Taipei, Seoul, Sydney and Singapore also fell. In Egypt, domestic investors were net sellers of some LE43.1 million, while foreigners made use of low prices, becoming net buyers of LE23.4 million. Market heavyweight Commercial International Bank (CIB) was down 2.3 percent to close at LE35.7 per share. Telecommunication stock Telecom Egypt (TE) and Global Telecom (GT) slipped 2.3 and 2.6 percent recording LE15.1 and LE4.6 per share respectively. Real estate developers Talaat Moustafa Group (TMG), Palm Hills Development (PHD) and Six of October Development and Investment (SODIC) tumbled 2.7, 3.2 and 3.7 percent, registering LE7.7, LE3.3 and LE23.6 per share respectively. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/95780.aspx
