CAIRO - Motivated by local and Arab selling, Egyptian shares fell on Thursday for the eighth day in a row, traders said. Locals and Arabs made net sell-offs worth LE62.5 million ($10.6 million) and LE7.8 million, according to Bourse data. Non-Arabs made net purchases worth LE70.3 million. The country's benchmark index EGX 30 fell by 0.53 per cent, ending the week at 5,022.25 points. The broader indexes EGX 70 and EGX 100 rose by 0.72 and 0.12 per cent to 632.63 and 945.74 points respectively. Volume totalled LE432 million ($72.6 million), according to Bourse data. Egypt's heavyweight Commercial International Bank (CIB) gained 0.41 per cent to LE27.17 per share. EFG-Hermes, the country's biggest investment bank by market value, shed 0.78 per cent to LE19.14 per share. Orascom Construction Industries plunged by 1.95 LE258.73 per share. Orascom Telecom, the biggest mobile operator in the Arab region, shed 1.03 per cent to LE3.86 per share. Mobinil fell by 0.61 per cent to LE104.31 per share. Meanwhile, shareholders in Sinai Cement approved a dividend of LE3 per share, the company said in a statement carried by Reuters. Sinai Cement, a unit of France's Vicat , said the total distribution would amount to LE210 million. Globally, mounting concerns about a US debt default dragged global stocks down to their lowest in more than a week and drove the dollar to a record low against the safe-haven Swiss franc. European stocks fell for the fourth straight session, following their Asian counterparts, as sovereign debt risks weighed on sentiment and drove investors away from riskier assets to safer ones such as gold. World shares as measured by MSCI were down 0.5 per cent, having fallen to its lowest since July 19 earlier in the session. The US dollar hit a record low of 0.7990 francs against the Swiss franc with investors increasingly downbeat about its prospects on concerns that deficit reduction proposals being discussed in Washington may fall short of the budget cuts necessary to avert a US debt downgrade. The euro was down 0.6 per cent at $1.4285 and lost 0.7 per cent against the Swiss franc at 1.1433 francs, not far from a record low of 1.1365 francs hit in mid-July. The euro shed nearly 1 percent against the Japanese yen--the other currency perceived as safe-haven among investors. Japanese fund managers have slashed their eurozone bond weighting to a record low and cut their U.S. bond allocations, while raising their Japanese bond weighting to a fresh all-time high, a Reuters poll showed.
