Egypt stocks end week lower, main index falls 0.7%

Egypt’s stock market edged lower this week with losses 1.45 billion Egyptian pounds (US$ million) on local and Arab investors’ selloff.

The main index fell 0.76 percent closing at 7611.03 points as liquidity migrated from other stocks to property developer Amer Group, which resumed trading after a three-day suspension as it split into two firms, according to Reuters.

Amer itself swung widely before closing down 7.1 percent in its heaviest trade since February 2014. The new firm, Porto Group, was by far the market’s most active stock and last traded at 0.42 Egyptian pounds after fluctuating between 0.36 and 0.43.

The market capitalization has recorded 459.131 billion pounds during the closing session of Thursday.

Indices

The newly-launched EGX50 EWI index went down 1.25 percent to 1285.84 points.

EGX20 sagged 0.21 percent to 7393 points.

In addition, the mid- and small-cap index EGX70 edged lower 1.50 percent to 398.72 points. The price index, EGX100 decreased 0.80 percent to 860.85 points.

Turnovers higher

On Thursday, the bourse’s trading volume has hit 563.575 million securities, with turnovers closed at 1.255 billion pounds, exchanged through 23,916 thousand transactions.

Also during the closing session, 179 listed securities have been traded in; 113 declined, 25 advanced; while 34 kept their previous levels.

Investors’ Activities

Local and Arab investors were net sellers Thursday seizing 89.49 percent  and 2.94 percent  respectively of the total markets, with a net equity of 32.989 million pounds and 14.905 million pounds, respectively, excluding the deals.

On the contrary, the non-Arab foreign investors were net buyers getting 7.57 percent of the total market, with a net equity of 47.894 million pounds, excluding the deals.