Egypt's stock market posted Thursday in a thin trade gains worth 1.1 billion Egyptian pounds (US$140.7 million) and main index EGX solely rallied in the last trading day of 2015. The market capitalisation reached 429.793 billion pounds during the closing session of Thursday. The Reuters survey showed sentiment toward Egypt improving as new central bank governor Tarek Amer partially eases - but does not completely eliminate - investors' worries about the nation's foreign exchange squeeze. The central bank has repaid foreign funds their backlog of hard currency. Twenty-nine percent of managers now expect to raise their allocations in Cairo and none to cut them, the survey found. Last month, 29 percent anticipated reducing allocations and 14 percent raising them. Indices Egypt's benchmark index, EGX30 rose 0.36 percent to 7006.01 points. The EGX50 EWI index dropped 0.29 percent to 1200.54 points. EGX20 went down 0.15 percent to 7074.59 points. In addition, the mid- and small-cap index EGX70 dipped 0.07 percent to 378.69 points. The price index, EGX100 grew 0.12 percent to 790.57 points. Turnovers humble On Thursday, the bourse's trading volume has recorded 197.214 million securities, with turnovers closed at 675.371 million, exchanged through 20,140 thousand transactions. Also during the closing session, 174 listed securities have been traded in; 87 declined, 60 advanced; while 24 kept their previous levels. Investors' Activities Local and non-Arab foreign investors remained net sellers Thursday seizing 87.95 percent and 5.7 percent respectively of the total markets, with a net equity of 23.793 million pounds and 22.154 million pounds, respectively, excluding the deals. On the contrary, the Arab investors were net buyers getting 6.35 percent of the total market, with a net equity of 45.948 million pounds, excluding the deals.
