CAIRO: Egypt s main stock index declined on Tuesday as profit-taking continued across the board for a second day, with declines in heavyweight Orascom Construction Industries (OCI), dealers said. OCI lost 3.91 percent to LE 135 ($23.94), while the benchmark EGX 30 index dropped 1.26 percent to 4,193.94 points. The rival Hermes index shed 1.11 percent and the broader EGX 70 dipped by 2.67 percent. It was about time the market would start profit taking, and we saw that yesterday and today, said Wafik Dawood of Naeem Brokerage, noting that the dip followed declines in international markets on Monday. We expect the market to recover. Not necessarily tomorrow, but the expectation is in the shorter term the market is going to go up again, he added. Shares in real estate developer Talaat Moustafa also fell, dropping 2.59 percent to LE 3.76. Regional mobile operator Orascom Telecom lost 1.65 percent to LE 25.66. But Suez Cement bucked the market trend to climb 3.94 percent to LE 24.01 after reporting a 6 percent rise in 2008 net profit to LE 1.04 billion. Also among the gainers was fixed line monopoly Telecom Egypt, which added 3.09 percent to LE 15. Shares in Sewedy Cables surged 6.42 percent to LE 52.25. Mohamed Radwan of Pharos Securities said the stocks were up on interest by regional and international institutions. Arab Cotton Ginning, popular among retail investors, gained 7.06 percent to LE 4.40.
