Driven by a profit-taking sentiment, Egyptian indexes fell on Thursday, traders said. Egypt's main index EGX 30 shed 58 points, they added. The North African country's benchmark index EGX 30 dipped by 0.84 per cent, ending the week's trading at 6,979.2 points. The EGX 70 index, which measures 70 of the country's small and mid caps, shed 1.65 per cent to 759.21 points. Volume hit LE1.3 billion ($238 million), according to the Egyptian Exchange. Orascom Construction Industries, Egypt's largest builder by market value, inched up slightly by 0.07 per cent, closing at LE267.85 per share. Orascom Telecom, the largest Arab mobile operator by subscribers, plunged by 2.06 per cent to LE6.66 per share. Meanwhile, the euro hit a seven-month low against the dollar on Thursday as concerns intensified that Greece's fiscal problems would spread to other highly-indebted euro zone countries, while European stocks followed Asia lower, Reuters reported. The premium investors demand to hold government debt issued by peripheral countries such as Greece, Portugal and Spain rather than benchmark German bunds rose again. The cost of insuring Portuguese debt against default hit a record high. The euro zone is dealing with a most severe debt crisis and the European Union said Greek plans to cut the budget gap from 12.7 percent of gross domestic product in 2009 to below 3 percent in 2012 would not be easy to implement. The euro fell around 0.4 percent on the day to $1.3831, its lowest since early July. The ten-year Portuguese/German government bond yield spread widened nine basis points on the day to 154 basis points. The equivalent Greek spread widened 12 basis points to 360 bps while the Spanish spread edged out to 93 bps from 91 bps. Portugal added to investor jitters after it cut its planned T-bill placement because yields spiked from January's placement on Greek concerns. Portuguese five-year credit default swaps hit a record high of 216 basis points from 196.2 bps late on Wednesday. This means it costs 216,000 euros per 10 million euros of exposure. Greek and Spanish five-year CDS also rose. "This highlights how the issue of fiscal problems in EMU is spreading and will continue to provide a negative backdrop for the euro," BNP Paribas said in a note to clients. "Renewed pressure on spreads in EMU will keep euro/dollar under pressure and the prospect of a break to new lows has increased." MSCI world equity index fell 0.4 percent while the FTSEurofirst 300 index lost 0.3 percent. Shell fell more than 2 percent after it posted a 75 percent fall in fourth-quarter profits to $1.18 billion due to falling output.
