CAIRO: Egypt s main stock index recoiled on Sunday, with heavyweight Orascom Construction (OCI) providing selling impetus by shedding more than 5 percent in low-volume trade dominated by local investors. OCI is the leader, and everyone is following it, said Teymour El-Derini from Beltone Financial. OCI dipped sharply in early trade and slid for the rest of the session to end down 5.44 percent at LE 106.02 ($19.06). The market is dead, said Mohamed Ebeid from EFG-Hermes. Volumes are extremely insignificant across the board, he said, citing a low level of foreign investor participation and a lack of direction typical of Sunday sessions. Shares fell across the board with very few exceptions. As the results reporting season approaches, Ebeid sees only the telecom and banking sectors escaping with decent figures. For everything else it is expected to be really bad, he said. Both of them are defensive sectors, banks are not sophisticated at all ... in terms of the instruments they have. Market heavyweight Orascom Telecom (OT) tumbled 6.4 percent to LE 21.20. OT did not buy back any of the 23 million shares it sought in the three months to the end of January, the stock exchange said. Other telecom shares also absorbed some of the day s blows. Mobinil dipped 2.79 percent to LE 132.00. Fixed-line monopoly Telecom Egypt shed 4.93 percent to LE 14.08. We are seeing less buying appetite, Beltone s Derini said. We are going to retest the lows we got earlier in January. He said that investors had priced in poor corporate results for 2009 and were more focused on macroeconomic data. Results that are good, bad or mediocre are not going to matter much as the market is based more on sentiment and local and global economic data, he said. Construction-related firms Ezz Steel and Sewedy Cables also abated on relatively large volumes, down 10.56 percent to LE 7.54 and 6.52 percent to LE 50.02, respectively. The benchmark CASE 30 index retreated 3.8 percent to 3,727.59 points and the rival Hermes index lost 3.83 percent to 360.69 points. The broader CIBC index fared better, dipping 0.18 percent to 275.4 points.
