CAIRO: A day after hopes for a real estate boom coaxed the market up, Egyptian shares dipped on Wednesday in a volatile market with the housing sector hit by profit-taking, traders said. As long as retail investors stay 80-85 percent of the daily net equity turnover, you would expect such dips, Mohamed Radwan of Delta Securities said. Another trader who declined to be named said: It s volatile, but volumes are not that high. Volume was concentrated in small to medium cap stocks favored by Egyptian retail investors rather than in blue chips, Radwan said. That made the market more volatile. The housing sector was down, with Medinet Nasr Housing dropping 7.8 percent to LE 71 ($12.37). Shams Housing and Development fell 7.3 percent to close at LE 9.25 per share. Egyptian textile firm Arabia Cotton Ginning tumbled 6.1 percent to close at LE 12.99 after investment bank EFG-Hermes said the stock was overvalued and cut its long-term recommendation to accumulate from buy . EFG-Hermes also reduced its short-term recommendation to neutral from buy and said the share s fair value was LE 12.70. EFG-Hermes, itself the day s most heavily traded stock, last traded 5.4 percent lower at LE 40.79. The benchmark Hermes index ended 1.5 percent lower at 50,479.83 points, while the broader CIBC index ended down 1.2 percent at 222.12 points. The widely watched CASE 30 index lost 1.7 percent to 5,760.63 points. Reuters
