Egyptian stocks rose on Tuesday for the seventh day in a row on local and Arab buying, traders said. Locals and Arabs made net purchases worth LE19.3 million ($3.2 million) and LE29 million, while non-Arabs made net sell-offs worth LE9.8 million, according to Bourse data. Egypt's benchmark index EGX 30 added 1.49 per cent to 5,203.28 points. The broader indexes EGX 70 and EGX 100 added 0.42 and 0.75 per cent to 630.3 and 965.57 points respectively. Volume totalled LE579 million, according to the Egyptian Exchange. Talaat Moustafa, the country's biggest listed builder, jumped by 8.99 per cent to LE4 per share. Egypt's heavyweight Commercial International Bank (CIB) gained 1.54 per cent to LE29.58 per share. Orascom Construction Industries rose by 1.22 per cent to LE256.04 per share. Orascom Telecom, the largest Arab mobile operator by subscribers, jumped by 2.17 per cent LE4.23 per share. EFG-Hermes, the country's biggest investment bank by market value, added 0.36 per cent to LE19.38 per share. EFG Hermes said it was cutting back bonuses to reduce costs by more than 20 per cent this year, Reuters reported. "As part of a strategy to make the organisation leaner and with a target of cutting costs in 2011 by over 20 per cent, the firm has elected to be aggressive with cuts to its bonuses in 2010," it said. EFG Hermes also said it had appointed Seif Fikry, who has worked for the Cairo-based investment bank for 14 years, as chief executive for the Gulf Arab states excluding Saudi Arabia. The National Bank for Development (NBD) posted a net loss of LE171.5 million for the first quarter of 2011. Shares in the bank were flat at LE3.96. The bank reported a net loss of LE61.4 million in the same period last year. An economic crisis sparked by the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in February has hit earnings of Egypt's banks. NBD is changing its status to become Egypt's third Islamic bank after Faisal Islamic Bank and the Egyptian Saudi Finance Bank. Meanwhile, world stocks dipped, with a key index hitting a one-month low on lingering doubts over the pace of the US economy and worries over Greece's debt, while oil lost ground as the dollar inched higher. World stocks as measured by the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) were down 0.2 per cent, with the index hitting its lowest level since mid-April earlier. Eurozone finance ministers said on Monday they would consider asking Greece's private creditors to extend the maturities on their bonds to buy Athens more time to pay down its massive debt, eclipsing their green light for a bailout for Portugal. "Markets are currently pricing the worst case scenario: a default of Greece and likely default of Ireland and Portugal. As long as we don't have a definitive plan to tackle Greece's debt problems, the sword of Damocles will remain over our heads," said Jacques Henry, analyst at Louis Capital Markets, in Paris. "A restructuring of the country's debt would hurt banks across Europe, but more broadly it could stop the contagion and remove the uncertainty." Yields on short-dated bonds of the euro zone's more indebted issuers fell on Tuesday after the 78 billion euro ($110 billion) Portuguese bailout was finalized, but the relief was not expected to last and longer-dated peripheral bond yields rose.
