CAIRO - Driven by local selling, Egyptian stocks slipped on Tuesday amid low volumes, traders said. Volume hit LE226 million ($38 million), according to Bourse data. Arab and non-Arabs made net purchses worth LE1.8 million and LE4.1 million respectively. Locals made net sell-offs worth LE5.9 million. The country's benchmark index EGX 30 slipped by 0.23 per cent to 4,631.77 points, according to Bourse data. The broader indexes EGX 70 and EGX 100 were also in the red, falling by 0.14 and 0.24 per cent to 564.59 and 850.1 points respectively. Egypt's heavyweight Commercial International Bank (CIB) added 0.07 per cent to LE26.93 per share. Orascom Construction Industries shed 0.67 per cent to LE239.81 per share. Meanwhile, world stocks, the euro and commodities rose, after gauges of Chinese and eurozone economic activity came in less gloomy than feared, according to Reuters. Although the eurozone and Chinese PMI data showed economic activity was likely to slow, they indicated there was still some growth. Hopes of more stimulus from the U.S. central bank also buoyed markets, which shrugged off much weaker-than-expected readings of the ZEW business sentiment index for Germany, the single currency bloc's largest economy. Financial markets have stabilised in the past two sessions after a few weeks of turmoil amid mounting fears of a new global crash to match that of 2008. World stocks measured by the MSCI All-Country World Index advanced 0.9 per cent, leaving the benchmark down more than 12 percent this month and looking likely to post its biggest monthly percentage drop since October 2008, just after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Europe's FTSEurofirst 300 index rose 1.2 per cent, extending the previous session's 0.8 percent rise, while Tokyo's Nikkei average ended 1.2 per cent higher. The euro was up 0.8 per cent at $1.4469, while the Australian dollar edged 0.9 per cent higher to $1.0494. The dollar was down 0.4 per cent at 76.58 yen , still holding above a record low of 75.94 yen struck late last week as market players were wary of any yen-selling intervention by Japanese authorities. The US currency has lost 5.6 per cent against the yen this year and more than 15 per cent versus the Swiss franc , as investors sought safety.
