Driven by foreign buying, Egyptian rebounded on Wednesday, traders said. Arab and non-Arab investors made net purchases worth LE4 million ($703,000) and LE39.8 million respectively, they added. The local market will be closed until Sunday, marking Eid el-Fitr (feast at the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan). The North African country's benchmark index EGX 30 gained 0.81 per cent, to 6,499.63 points. The EGX 70 index, which measures 70 of the country's small and mid caps, added 0.76 per cent to 601.49 points. Local investors made net sell-offs worth LE43 million, according to the Egyptian Exchange. Orascom Construction Industries, Egypt's largest builder by market value, jumped by 1.32 per cent, closing at LE253.38 per share. Orascom Telecom, the largest Arab mobile operator by subscribers, rose by 0.57 per cent to LE5.3 per share. Meanwhile, world shares were generally weaker but gaining in Europe, subject to another bout of on-again, off-again investor jitters, this time about European banks, Reuters reported. The dollar hit a 15-year low against the Japanese yen and Wall Street looked set to open higher after suffering more than 1 percent losses in the previous session. Investors have spent most of the northern hemisphere's summer trying to buy risk assets such as stocks, but fleeing at the first hint of any trouble. MSCI's main world stock index was down 0.1 per cent. There was little concrete to trigger this, although there are worries that Ireland's latest efforts to drag its banking system out of crisis point to deeper trouble that will spill over into other sovereigns. One result was that European shares rebounded from earlier losses, leaving the pan-European FTSEurofirst up 0.3 per cent for a 1.9 per cent year-to-date gain. "Profits generally from active traders have been pretty soft so they are trying to eke out a positive return but they are also wary of ending down for the year," said Jeremy Armitage, head of research at State Street Global Markets. "They are in a bifurcated mindset. They can't afford to be long and wrong," he said. The dollar fell as far as 83.34 yen, down 0.5 percent on the day and its cheapest since 1995 when it struck an all-time low around 79.75. It later recovered toward 84.00. The euro was up slightly at $1.2715, having dived from $1.2870 on Tuesday and a three-week high of $1.2920 the day before.
