This week's early trading maintained its sideways trend from the last, Wael Gamal reports The main features of last week's trading in the stock market seem to be prevailing this week. Although the CASE 30 index performance was modestly positive on Sunday's trading session, gaining 1.61 per cent turnover continued to be low, with only LE220 million in transactions, slipping an additional 20 per cent from Thursday's level, while telecoms maintaining their positions as the most active stocks. "The market is dominated by retail investors as it continues to suffer from a lack of institutional flow. Added to the international downward trend, investors are retreating in fear of further deterioration and political uncertainty," said Mohamed Radwan, head of institutional sales at ABN AMRO Delta-Egypt Asset Management. On Sunday's session, despite the CASE 30 rise, declining stocks outnumbered advancers at a ratio of 15:13. The milling sector came in the lead, while the housing sector were the worst performers. Alexandria Mills was the session's top performer as it rose by five per cent to close at LE13.87 per share. Extracted Oils came in second with its share price increase of 4.97 per cent while Central Egypt Mills and South Cairo Mills had respective price gains of 4.82 per cent and 4.14 per cent. Nasr City Housing was the worst performer for the day as it lost 6.88 per cent to close at LE64.34 per share. Cairo Housing and United Housing were the second- and fourth-worst performers respectively. On the other hand, telecom stocks continued their solid performance of last week with Orascom Telecom having turnover of LE40.64 million, which made it CASE's most active stock. The company's share price rose by 3.1 per cent, while MobiNil also rose by 1.19 per cent. Despite a strong performance on Thursday, CASE 30 Index closed with a decrease of 0.7 per cent over the week, from 4,074 points at the end of the previous week to 4,045 points. Having started the week with a drop of 3.4 per cent, following a bombing in Khan Al-Khalili, it rebounded on the last day of the week's trading with an increase of 1.5 per cent. Added to the fact that the previous week witnessed exceptionally high turnover, due to the conclusion of the MIDOR deal with a total volume of 297,000 shares worth LE2.5 billion, it was also investors' caution, partly over Khan Al-Khalili bombing and partly due to a sideways move after recent heady gains that led to significantly lower turnover. Total value traded plunged to LE1.58 billion compared to LE4.56 billion during the previous week, while the total volume went down to reach 74 million shares compared to 79 million shares last week, executed over 57,000 transactions as opposed to 66,000 transactions the week before. Shares accounted for 87 per cent of the total market's trading value this week, followed by bonds recording six per cent with a value of LE95.08 million. Telecoms recorded the highest value traded over the week with LE367 million, followed by the building materials and construction sector, with a total value traded of LE271 million. OT was the week's most active stock and the second-best performer. The company had a 4.5 per cent price gain closing at a turnover of LE219.30 million. The market seems to have continued to link Sawiris's Weather Investments bid for Italy's Wind to OT despite the bid being independently offered by Sawiris Group. Meanwhile, MobiNil's turnover of LE112.98 million ranked it as the fifth-most active stock during the week. Another sign of the sector solid fundamentals was the announcement of Telecom Egypt that it will launch VOIP services in the Egyptian market within a few weeks. Cisco has supplied Telecom Egypt with the required equipment for the service for $5 million. Nevertheless the highest gainer of the week was Extracted Oils. Its share price increased by 4.63 per cent, compared to the previous week, to close LE20.13 per share, with trading worth LE4.42 million. Meanwhile, Nasr SODIC's price decline of 18.16 per cent ranked it as the worst performing stock during the week. The company's accumulated losses as of the end of the first nine months of 2004 exceeded 50 per cent of its paid-in capital. Should this be the case as of the end of financial year 2004, the company could be liquidated in accordance with Article 47 of its by-laws. Another feature of the market last week was the relative outflow of foreigners. They were net sellers with a net equity outflow of LE179,000 allowing Egyptians to control 74 per cent of the value traded during the week. Radwan refuses to explain this on political confidence basis. "This is a reflection of what's been happening lately in international markets and the idea that the Egyptian market has reached its peak. They will be buying again as soon as prices go down," he said. Radwan does not expect the prevailing calmness to change in the near future. "There will be no drastic moves, especially given that the next period will witness a series of holidays. The market will stay sideways," he predicted.
