CAIRO - Egyptian stocks slipped on Wednesday, ending a five-day gaining streak, traders said. The North African country's benchmark index EGX 30 shed 0.76 per cent to 6,943.38 points. The EGX 70, which measures 70 of the country's small and mid caps, fell by 1.44 per cent to 738.35 points. Volume hit LE1.3 billion, according to the Egyptian Exchange. Commercial International Bank (CIB) fell by 0.41 per cent to LE46.4 per share. Orascom Telecom, the largest Arab mobile operator by subscribers, shed 1.58 per cent to LE4.35 per share. Globally, a downbeat assessment of the U.S. recovery from the Federal Reserve weighed on global equities while European shares and the euro came under pressure from a threat to downgrade Spain's debt, Reuters reported. Yields on US Treasuries climbed to seven-month highs in Asian trading, partly because of concern about the US deficit, before later settling back. A warning from Moody's on a possible downgrade of Spain's credit ratings served as a reminder to investors of the risks to the global recovery heading into 2011, pushing the euro sharply lower. The FTSEurofirst 300 stock index was also down a third of a percent, albeit after a seven-session winning streak. In putting Spain's AA1 ratings on review, Moody's cited concerns about its mounting debt and 2011 funding needs. Robert Ryan, FX strategist at BNP Paribas in Singapore, said the threat of a downgrade was not really a surprise given Spain's 10-year yield spread was about 250 basis points over Bunds. "This just focuses attention back on Spain," he said, referring to the rolling eurozone debt crisis. The euro was at a three-month low to the Swiss franc. "There is an unwillingness among investors to hold riskier eurozone bonds over the year-end, so they are selling and going into Swiss francs," said Carl Hammer, currency strategist at SEB in Stockholm. Against the dollar, the euro was down half a percent at $1.3316. The dollar was up 0.4 percent against a basket of currencies .DXY. Globally, however, sentiment was being hurt by the Federal Reserve saying on Tuesday that the U.S. recovery was still too slow to bring down stubbornly high unemployment. Investors were also booking profits from a long autumn rally before year-end. At its last policy meeting of the year, the Fed offered only a cautious nod to improving prospects for the US economy and reaffirmed its commitment to buy $600 billion in bonds to stimulate growth. "The very first line of the very first paragraph is justification for what it's doing -- it talks about a recovery that just isn't strong enough to bring down the unemployment rate," said Mike Lenhoff, chief strategist and head of research at Brewin Dolphin Securities. The Morgan Stanley Capital International's (MSCI) all-country world stock index was down 0.4 per cent.
