As stamp tax may be imposed, Egypt stocks incur heaviest losses in 2017

Egyptian stock market ended the week with the heaviest losses since the beginning of 2017 after the International Monetary Fund released the details of its $12 billion saying that the government might reintroducing a stamp duty on stock market transactions temporarily.

The market capitalisation plummeted Thursday to 612.521 billion pounds from 631.870 billion pounds in Wednesday, registering losses estimated at 19.3 billion pounds.

Indices

Egypt’s benchmark index, EGX30 sagged by 3.74 percent to 12806.77 points.

The EGX50 EWI index slumped by 4.99 percent to 1950.31 points.

EGX20 plummeted by 4.74 percent to 12566.71 points.

In addition, the mid- and small-cap index EGX70 inched down by 3.21 percent to 460.55 points. The price index, EGX100 dropped by 2.99 percent to 1127.67 points.

Turnovers down

On Thursday, the bourse’s trading volume has registered 467.365 million securities, with turnovers closed at 1.456 billion pounds, exchanged through 40,994 thousand transactions.

Also during the closing session, 186 listed securities have been traded in; 159 declined, 9 advanced; while 17 kept their previous levels.

Investors’ Activities

Arab and non-Arab investors were net buyers on Thursday getting 7.71 percent and 10.86 percent respectively of the total markets, with a net equity of 24.945 million pounds and 112.760 million pounds, respectively, excluding the deals.

On the contrary, foreign investors were net sellers seizing 81.43 percent of the total market, with a net equity of 137.706 million pounds, excluding the deals.