Bourse Tax Woes Foreign Investors, Drags EGX 30 Below 5520 Pts; Closing

The Egyptian Exchange (EGX) has ended Wednesday’s session incurring substantial losses of EGP 1.9 billion driven by foreign selling pressures. The capital market has reached to EGP 374.932 billion during Wednesday’s closing. The Egyptian market is highly witnessing volatility amid the announcement of  imposing stamp taxes on the bourse’s daily selling and buying transactions at 0.001 after getting the approval of the country’s Upper House.

The EGX indices ended in red notes.

Egypt’s benchmark index EGX 30 ended Wednesday’s session on a red note as it inched down by 0.55% to close at 5515.68 p; while EGX20 fell by 0.48% to end at 6414.42 p.

Meanwhile, the mid- and small-cap index, the EGX70 went down by 0.68% to conclude at 470.27 pts.  Price index EGX100 dipped by 0.65% to finish at 794.14 p.

During Wednesday’s closing, the trading volume hit 76.601 million securities, higher than Tuesday’s 59.998 million securities, representing an increase of 16.603 thousand securities. For the traded value, it reached EGP 261.809 million, exchanged 15.684 thousand transactions.

This was after trading in 164 listed securities; 105 declined, 31 advanced; while 28 keeping their previous levels.

The non-Arab foreigners’ selling pressures have driven EGX’s losses on Wednesday as they were net sellers seizing 22.52% of the total markets, with a net equity of EGP 27.518 million excluding the deals.

Meanwhile, Egyptians and Arabs were net buyers seizing 72.54% and 4.94% respectively, of the total markets, with a net equity of EGP 17.118 million and EGP 10.399 million excluding the deals.