Egyptian stocks fell on Sunday as Orascoms Telecom and Orascom Construction Industries were in the red, traders said. The North African country's benchmark index EGX 30 shed 0.14 per cent, ending the day's trading at 6,465.08 points. The EGX 70 index, which measures 70 of the country's small and mid caps, was nearly flat at 606.35 points. Egyptian investors made net sell-offs worth LE18.8 million ($3.3 million). Talaat Moustafa Group jumped by 3.43 per cent to LE7.23 per share. "Talaat Moustafa is reacting positively after the prosecutor cancelled (an) investigation regarding the Madinaty project, saying the firm gave the government all benefits of the sale," Karim Hosny of Pharos Securities told Reuters. Orascom Telecom slipped by 1.09 per cent to LE5.44 per share. Orascom Construction Industries, Egypt's largest builder by market value, shed 0.36 per cent, to LE253.3 per share. Volume hit LE486 million, according to the Egyptian Exchange. On Friday, US stocks rebounded to post their best gains in nearly four weeks, overcoming initial skittishness brought on by a revenue warning from Intel and dour comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Strong buying interest at a key technical level and short-covering sparked the market's comeback, and the tone improved as investors took a more positive view of Bernanke's comments about the economy and the Fed's readiness to act. Bernanke told central bankers at a conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming the recovery has weakened more than expected but the US central bank was ready to take further steps if needed to spur the recovery. The Fed chairman downplayed concerns that the economy might slip back into recession, reassuring investors spooked by his recent comments the US economy faced "unusual uncertainty." "Bernanke struck the right tone to say, 'We know things have been weaker than expected, but we still think we're going to get through this,'" said Scott Marcouiller, chief technical market strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors in St. Louis. Intel Corp briefly helped take indexes lower after the chipmaker warned third-quarter revenue could fall short of its own estimates by more than $1 billion. But its shares finished up 1.1 per cent at $18.37 after losing more than 15 per cent since late July. Shares in Intel were halted twice, once pending news and once after the stock triggered a circuit breaker. "Even though the news is bad, the bad news is already in the valuation. Obviously business isn't going great there, but the stock is so cheap this doesn't matter," said Stephen Massocca, managing director at Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco. The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI gained 164.84 points, or 1.65 percent, to 10,150.65. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX jumped 17.37 points, or 1.66 per cent, to 1,064.59. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 34.94 points, or 1.65 per cent, to 2,153.63. Nonetheless, the Dow and S&P 500 racked up their third week of declines in a row. For the week, the Dow was down 0.6 percent, the S&P lost 0.7 percent, while the Nasdaq gave up 1.2 percent. The stock market started on a positive note after U.S. economic growth was revised down in the second quarter, but still the reading was better than expected. The debate over whether the economic recovery has hit a soft patch or is headed for a double-dip recession has plagued the market. Although the data pointed to an even softer performance in the third quarter, investors were relieved that the reading was not as bad as feared. "Coming into the day, expectations were it could be a miserable day. It didn't happen, so I have to think there was huge short-covering behind this rally," Marcouiller said. Stocks that benefit from a strong economy were among the day's winners, with Caterpillar Inc and Boeing lifting the Dow. Caterpillar rose 3 percent to $65.90 and Boeing gained 3 percent to $63.16. Shares of 3PAR Inc surged 24.7 per cent to $32.46 after Hewlett-Packard Co again raised its buyout offer for the data storage company, leapfrogging a bid from Dell Inc (DELL.O). HP, a Dow component, dipped 0.6 percent to $38, while Dell rose 1.2 percent to $11.89. Energy and materials shares also led the way up as the price of oil rose more than 2 per cent over $75 a barrel. The S&P energy group jumped 2.8 per cent and Chevron gained 2.2 per cent to $74.93.
