The Egyptian Exchange (EGX) has opened Wednesday's session incurring losses of EGP 1.36 billion driven by local and non-Arab foreign selling pressures. This comes after Many of Egypt's revolutionary movements will hold a protest today in front of Egypt's Supreme Court against the country's attempts to secure a loan from International Monetary Fund (IMF). The political activist Alaa Abdel Fattah called for a protest on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. (12:00 p.m.) in front of Egypt's Supreme Court and then a march to the Cabinet to reject the US$ 4.8 billion loan from the IMF as “it would lead to the impoverishment of the Egyptian people." The IMF mission is expected to arrive Egypt today to resume negotiations with the Egyptian authorities over the long-awaited loan. The capital market has amounted to EGP 349.248 billion, according to data compiled by Amwal Al Ghad English at 11:00 a.m. Cairo time (09:00 GMT) during Wednesday's opening session. The EGX indices opened in green notes. Benchmark EGX30 tumbled by 0.82% to 4996.06 p; while EGX20 fell by 0.68% to 5779.37 p. Meanwhile, the mid- and small-cap index, the EGX70 went down by 0.51% to 435.22 p. Price index EGX100 dipped by 0.72% to 725.32 p. During Wednesday's opening session, the trading volume has reached 7.531 million securities worth EGP 24.151 million, exchanged through 1.638 transactions. This was after trading in 92 listed securities; 55 declined, 8 advanced; while 29 keeping their previous levels. Egyptians and non-Arab foreigners' selling pressures have driven EGX's opening losses as they were net sellers seizing 53.79% and 41.49% respectively, of the total markets, with a net equity of EGP 866.941 thousand and EGP 874.607 thousand excluding the deals. Meanwhile, Arabs were net buyers seizing 4.73% of the total markets, with a net equity of EGP 1.741 million excluding the deals. The IMF delegation are due to meet with a number of officials including the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation and Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt. Cabinet's spokesman Alaa El-Hadidy affirmed that the government will implement the economic reform plan regardless of whether an agreement is reached or not.
