CAIRO: Transactions on the Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchange (Case) were particularly vibrant this week, tempting many investors to sell shares. This led to a fall in the Case 30 Index to 7410 points on Wednesday, recording the highest drop this week, but again rising to 7424 points on Thursday. In the abundance of strong liquidity dealers - Egyptians, Arabs and foreigners - the value of transactions on Wednesday was close to LE 1.8 billion, almost the highest value recorded since the beginning of the year. In contrast, sales on Thursday were less vibrant, and value of transactions recorded LE 1.28 billion. Towards the end of the week, the real estate and housing sector, especially saw mixed results. Sodic had a turnover of LE 555.82 million, losing 0.19 percent to close at LE 156.68/share. Sodic stated earlier that failure to acquire Palm Hills was due to the fact that Palm Hills did not transfer the ownership of some of the lands owned by its subsidiaries. Heliopolis Housing recorded a turnover of LE 514.85 million, gaining 19.81 percent to close at LE 581.16/share. Heliopolis Housing announced that it intended to establish a housing project over an area of 1,700 acres, near the Madinaty project on the Cairo-Suez highway. Alexandria Real Estate Investment had a turnover of LE 301.33 million as well as an increase of 18.67 percent to close at LE 282.54/share. Nasr City Housing reported a turnover of LE 183.09 million, gaining 34.84 percent to close at LE 309.40/share. In another development, dealers at the bourse exceeded 2 million investors, coming at a time when the Egyptian market ranked the second largest African market and the third Arab market. During the first half of this year, average daily transactions on the Case soared to LE 1.5 billion, reflecting evolution on the market.
