CAIRO: Egypt outperformed other Middle East markets, with its benchmark index gaining 1.16 percent, on optimism that company results will begin to improve after a popular uprising damaged Egypt's economy. "There are good volumes going through the market," said CIBC trader Omar Darwish, adding that gains are "mainly driven by pre-earnings as everyone is looking forward to good third-quarter results." Orascom Construction, due to report second-quarter results this week, gained 2.3 percent and soaked up the biggest share of trading on the Egyptian Exchange. Commercial International Bank rose 2.2 percent and Ezz Steel 1.8 percent. El Sewedy Electric jumped 4.4 percent. "It was very much an undervalued stock, trading much lower than targets," said Darwish. "News of a stock dividend also made it much more liquid." Despite the rise, pessimism on global markets was still capping the market's gains. "The market today is influenced by a decline in world markets and particularly in Asia due to the euro zone crisis and US jobs data which came in worse than expected," said Mohamed El-Naggar, head of research in Marwa Securities. Egypt's benchmark index reached a two-year low of 4,418 points on Aug. 9. On Monday it was at 4,715 points.
