Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif appointed Khaled Serry Siam as the chairman of the Egyptian Exchange, replacing Maged Shawqi who had headed the bourse since 2005. The bourse gained 81 points on the news on Sunday, traders said. The new chairman will assume responsibility from July 15, the Ministry of Investment said in a statement carried by Reuters on Saturday. Siam is the vice president of the General Authority for Financial Supervision (GAFS) and previously served as vice president of the Capital Markets Authority, the Ministry said. Shawqi, who led the bourse through the global financial crisis, had asked to end his tenure by the start of the new fiscal year in July, the Ministry added. "It should have a neutral effect on the market," Ashraf Akhnoukh, a senior equity trader at CIBC brokerage in Cairo, told Bloomberg. "He will most likely carry on with the same policies of his predecessor." For the second day in a row, Egyptian stocks rose on non-Arab bullish sentiment. Gains in US stocks on Friday injected optimism into non-Arab investors, traders said. US stocks ended its best week in a year with another gain on Friday as investors bet that companies will report strong second-quarter earnings. The benchmark EGX 30 stock index gained 35 per cent in 2009. It has lost 2.9 per cent this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. During his tenure, Shawqi oversaw the creation of the Nile Stock Exchange for small- and medium-sized companies. He said in March that the exchange was planning to introduce commodity-related derivatives as part of plans to set up a market trading raw materials in the longer term. Egypt's economy maintained a growth rate close to five per cent even during the global downturn and the index has fallen only 2.9 per cent this year, compared with a 3.8 per cent fall in the global emerging market index. Egypt's stock exchange, with a market capitalization of $90 billion, has 213 companies trading a daily volume of 150 billion shares. Non-Arabs made net purchases worth LE14.8 million ($2.6 million), while Egyptians and Arabs made net sell-offs worth LE10 million and LE4.8 million respectively. The country's benchmark index EGX 30 gained 1.35 per cent, ending the day's trading at 6,108.29 points. The EGX 70, which measures 70 of the country's small and mid caps, jumped by 4.47 per cent to 561.46 points. Volume hit LE621 million, according to the Egyptian Exchange. EFG-Hermes, Egypt's largest investment bank by market value, added 1.52 per cent, closing at LE30 per share. Orascom Construction Industries, the country's largest builder by market value, rose by 1.22 per cent to LE233.94 per share. Orascom Telecom, the largest Arab mobile operator by subscribers, gained 1.21 per cent to LE5.03 per share. Developer Talaat Moustafa inched 0.69 per cent up to LE7.25 per share. On Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 59 points, or 0.6 per cent. That gave the Dow its biggest weekly advance in a year, 5.3 per cent. Broader indexes posted bigger gains. Trading volume was light, signaling that many investors were staying out of the market. But those who were trading appeared optimistic about the company reports that will be announced starting next week. News on the US economy wasn't as upbeat. Inventories held by wholesalers rose in May for a fifth straight month though sales dropped for the first time in more than a year. The US government said wholesale inventories rose 0.5 per cent and sales dropped 0.3 per cent. It was the first drop since March 2009, when major stock indexes hit a 12-year low. But investors didn't appear fazed by the inventories report. Instead, the market appeared to hold on to optimism fed by Thursday's report of a drop in the number of newly laid off people seeking unemployment benefits. That report ended a string of bad news about the job market, and likely contributed to investors' more positive mood going into what's known as earning season.
