CAIRO: Egyptian stocks edged up on Sunday, with high turnover in the real estate sector helping the market recover some end-of-week losses suffered during a correction following a boom in the sector, trader said. On Saturday, Egyptian and Gulf real estate firms bought three large tracts of land near Cairo for LE 13.3 billion, but the stock indexes were barely affected, and real estate shares were mixed. Thursday saw the main indexes dropping between 0.5 and 0.7 percent. But retail investors, who did the bulk of the day s trading, cashed in on the drop in prices to position themselves in the sector. The ones who missed the earlier rally, they re trying to benefit from this weakness, and ones who made money are trying to get out and lock some profits, said EFG-Hermes s Ahmed Hifnauy. Heliopolis Housing, which owns extensive land holdings, recouped some of its losses from Thursday and rose 3.1 percent to LE 499.98 pounds. Egyptian Resorts, which owns land on the Red Sea, saw its shares rise 0.4 percent to last trade at LE 10.35. Sixth of October Development and Investment (SODIC) , the session s most heavily traded stock by volume, continued to fall on news that merger talks with property developer Palm Hills had failed. It lost 2.6 percent to last trade at LE 152.90. The benchmark Hermes index closed 0.3 percent higher at 67,888.54 points, and the well-watched Case 30 index was almost steady at 7,630.70 points. The broader CIBC index rose 0.8 percent to 332.12 points.
