CAIRO: Egypt s benchmark index rebounded on Wednesday after six straight sessions of decline, gaining more than 3 percent as bourses around the world were buoyed by the US government s bailout of insurer AIG. Heavyweight gainers included Orascom Construction Industries, Egypt s largest builder by market value, which jumped 6.8 percent to LE 320 ($58.44) after it said it had won a $150 million joint venture contract in Abu Dhabi. That news helped, said Teymour El-Derini, a trader at Beltone Financial. The stock was undervalued and it is not a PE (price to earnings) player, it is a growth prospect, he added. Commercial International Bank also jumped, rising 7.5 percent to LE 41. Gains were largely explained by improving sentiment based on world economic events, traders said. It s all related to the sentiment, nothing related to the Egyptian market itself, said Wafik Dawood, a senior account executive at Naeem Brokerage. For the last three days the market performance has had nothing to do with Egypt as a country. The CASE 30 index ended 3.28 percent higher at 7,420.20 points, while the Hermes index rose 2.76 percent to 663.1 points and the broader CIBC index gained 2.09 percent to 392.37 points. The CASE 30 index had dipped to its lowest level since March 2007 on Tuesday as foreign hedge funds sold big caps, spurring retail panic, brokers said. That selling was spurred by news Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy protection. Beltone s Derini said foreign institutions returned to the market in force on Wednesday, and good volumes were traded. However, investment bank EFG-Hermes dipped 2.08 percent to LE 39.97 after Tuesday s announcement that it had bought a $65 million stake in a United Arab Emirates housing developer to tap growth in regional construction. Mobile operator Orascom Telecom gained 4.14 percent to 42.80 pounds as it continued its buyback of global depositary receipts.
