CAIRO: Shares in some of Egypt s biggest firms clocked heavy losses on Thursday, pushing the index into negative territory despite a plethora of third quarter results showing some resilience among construction and cement firms. Orascom Construction fell 3.31 percent to LE 172.74 ($31.21) and Orascom Telecom shed 6.32 percent to LE 30.25, with brokers saying much of the selling pressure on blue chips came from foreigners exiting. Together, those stocks constitute close to 40 percent of the benchmark CASE 30 index, which ended down 3.95 percent at 4,823.59 points. Traders said the Egyptian market remain enthralled by market movements in Europe and the United States, and to a lesser extent in the Gulf region. We are affected by the global markets whether we like it or not, said Karim Hosny from Pharos Securities. He added that investors were not closely watching the string of third quarter results issued this week. The effects of the crisis won t appear now on the results of the companies, it will probably appear in the next couple of quarters, he said. Telecom Egypt shares fell 1.36 percent after posting a 35 percent jump in third quarter profit. The third biggest weight on the index, Commercial International Bank posted a 25 percent rise in profit that still came in below one analyst s expectation, and ended up slightly at LE 31. Investment bank EFG-Hermes lost more than 10 percent to end at LE 19.70. On the positive side, cement and steel firms solidified profit gains with growth on the market. Egypt s largest cement maker, Suez Cement gained 1.64 percent to LE 23.50 after it posted a 14 percent rise in nine-month profit on the strength of the local market. Investors, mainly from the Gulf, are pouring billions of dollars into construction projects in Egypt. Ezz Dekheila Steel, a subsidiary of Ezz Steel, made net profit of LE 2.7 billion in the first nine months of 2008, 53 percent up on the same period of 2007. The Hermes index fell 3.08 percent to 447.74 points.
