Spearheaded by foreign buying, Egypt's market jumped on Tuesday with its main index EGX 30 gaining 140 points, traders said. The North African country's benchmark index EGX 30 jumped by 2.16 per cent, ending the day's trading at 6,659.14 points. The EGX 70 index, which measures 70 of the country's small and mid caps, leapt by 3.55 per cent to 691.17 points. Volume hit LE1.8 billion (around $328 million), Orascom Construction Industries, Egypt's largest builder by market value, gained 2.19 per cent, closing at LE254.97 per share. Orascom Telecom, the largest Arab mobile operator by subscribers, plunged by 2.9 per cent to LE5.35 per share. Meanwhile, Wall Street and steadier commodity prices prodded world stocks higher but the euro remained weak against the dollar, shackled by uncertainty over Greece's debt crisis. US shares rose in the overnight session after the passing of landmark legislation to reform healthcare, with pharmaceutical stocks driving gains. Gold rebounded after plumbing its lowest levels in nearly a month while US light crude recovered after sinking to three-week lows in the previous session. The Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) main world equity index was up 0.2 per cent by 10:55 GMT, with the FTSEurofirst 300 index of pan-European blue-chips up 0.7 per cent. "We've had a decent start which is an indication that there is a bias towards equities with investors seeing more upside," said Peter Dixon, economist at Commerzbank. Comments from senior Fed officials that the US central bank remained committed to maintaining loose monetary conditions helped reassure investors startled by India's surprise move on Friday to hike its interest rates. President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Dennis Lockhart said the Fed's pledge to keep rates ultra-low for an extended period was appropriate. His counterpart in Chicago said he strongly supported keeping the current loose monetary stance as long as inflation remained under control. Emerging economies such as India are facing rising inflationary pressures, caused in part by an influx of capital, but consumer price rises in developed Western economies are broadly slower. British consumer prices rose at a slower rate than expected in February, sending sterling to its lowest in nearly two weeks. Emerging stocks rose 0.4 per cent while emerging sovereign spreads tightened two basis points to trade at 262 bps over US Treasuries.
