The Egyptian Exchange (EGX) has ended this week posting gains of EGP 3.04 billion powered by the Egyptian court's ruling that reversed the freezing asset decree against the 21 local and Arab businessmen. The capital market has reached to EGP 361.559 billion during Thursday's closing session. The EGX indices ended Thursday in green notes. Egypt's benchmark index EGX30 pushed up by 1.22% to close at 5224.42 p; while EGX20 climbed by 1.02% to end at 6126.33 p. Meanwhile, the mid- and small-cap index, the EGX70 inched up by 0.77% to conclude at 453.41 pts. Price index EGX100 surged by 1.14% to finish at 758.28 p. During Thursday's closing, the trading volume hit 73.161 million securities, higher than Wednesday's 61.804 million securities, representing an increase of 11.357 thousand securities. For the traded value, it reached EGP 257.345 million, exchanged 15.298 thousand transactions. This was after trading in 172 listed securities; 20 declined, 117 advanced; while 35 keeping their previous levels. Egyptian and Arab investors have backed EGX's gains amid the court's ruling to reverse the freezing assets of 21 businessmen including 5 Saudis. Egyptians and Arabs were net buyers seizing 88.18% and 3.27% respectively, of the total markets, with a net equity of EGP 29.987 million and EGP 14.353 million excluding the deals. Meanwhile, the non-Arab foreigners were net sellers seizing 8.55% of the total markets, with a net equity of EGP 44.341 million excluding the deals. Cairo Criminal Court on Wednesday had reversed an asset freeze decree against a number of prominent businessmen that had been ordered by the prosecutor-general earlier this week. On Sunday evening, Egyptian Prosecutor-General Talaat Abdullah ordered the assets of 21 people, including Egyptian, Saudi and Emirati businessmen and officials at several Egyptian brokerage firms and banks, frozen. All those that had their assets frozen remain under investigation for alleged Egyptian stock market manipulation regarding the 2007 sale of El-Watany Bank of Egypt to the National Bank of Kuwait. Nine of the men targeted by the freeze had been initially indicted in May of last year, including ousted President Hosni Mubarak's two sons, Gamal and Alaa; EFG-Hermes CEOs Yasser El-Mallawany and Hassan Heikal; former EFG-Hermes CEO Amr El-Kady; and four others.
