Driven by retail and non-Arab buying, Egyptian indexes gained on Wednesday, ending a three-day losing streak, traders said. The North African country's benchmark index EGX 30 rose by 0.26 per cent, ending the day's trading at 6,586.67 points. The EGX 70 index, which measures 70 of the country's small and mid caps, added 1.95 per cent to 730.21 points. Volume hit LE995 million ($256 million), according to the Egyptian Exchange. In a related event, the first tranche of Egyptian mobile firm Mobinil's issue of LE1.5 billion ($275 million) in corporate bonds was oversubscribed by one a half times, its underwriter said. Institutions and high net-worth investors placed orders for 21 million bonds, compared to the 14 million on offer in the first tranche worth 1.4 billion pounds, EFG-Hermes said in a statement carried by Reuters. "The bond is both the largest corporate issue in Egypt year-to-date and the first bond in Egypt to be widely marketed to financial institutions and fully underwritten by an investment bank," it said. A second tranche of 100 million pounds offered to retail investors was oversubscribed in excess of 11.4 times, the bank said. The five-year bonds, which Mobinil will use to finance the expansion of its network, have a fixed annual yield of 12.25 percent payable once every six months. Meanwhile, Egyptian textiles company Arab Cotton Ginning said it had received the regulator's approval to distribute one free share for each ten owned as a dividend. "This is the dividend of last October ... distribution should be sometime next week," Hany Olama, chairman of Arab Cotton Ginning, told Reuters. The shares will capitalise reserves of LE120 million. Global stock markets fell again, hitting their lowest in two months as investors fretted about a monetary squeeze from central banks around the world and also the impact of tightening US banking regulation. European markets were down 0.2 per cent, well off their lows as Wall Street looked set for a modestly positive start. Asia stocks had a ninth straight day of losses on continued reverberations over China's credit tightening this week. While the meeting is expected to yield little in terms of a near-term policy shift, traders will scour its statement for clues on when it may wind down its policy of quantitative easing -- effectively money printing via purchases of bonds. There were also concerns about the intensifying regulatory backlash against US and global banks, captured by U.S. President Barack Obama's latest proposals to limit the size of banks, their proprietary trading and their links to hedge funds. "There are worries about the Fed phasing out quantitative easing," said Bernard McAlinden, investment strategist at NCB Stockbrokers. "There are also still worries about Obama's plans for banks, and Chinese growth."
