Egypt’s Benchmark Closes Further Below 5435 Pts Triggered By Stamp Tax
Egypt bourse has ended sessions on Monday incurring further losses of EGP 1.8 billion driven by local and Arab selling pressures amid adopting the stamp tax.
The Egyptian Exchange’s indices have closed on red notes on Monday.
Egypt’s benchmark index EGX30 edged down by 0.35% to close at 5432.15 p; while the EGX20, it dropped by 0.43% to end at 6239.93 p.
Meanwhile, the mid- and small-cap index, the EGX70 plummeted by 0.70% to conclude at 448.67 p. On the other hand, the price index EGX100 fell by 0.44% to finish at 757.21 p.
The capital market has closed at EGP 364.210 billion on Monday.
During the closing session of Monday, the trading volume hit 72.478 million securities, higher than the closing session of Sunday of 38.414 million securities, representing an increase of 34.064 thousand securities. For the traded value, it reached EGP 278.460 million, exchanged through 13.991 thousand transactions.
During the closing session of Monday, 172 listed securities have been traded in; 116 declined, 25 advanced; while 31 keeping their previous levels.
Investors’ Activity:
Egyptians and Arabs were net sellers seizing 88.81% and 2.06% respectively, of the total markets, with a net equity of EGP 2.565 million and EGP 3.823 million excluding the deals.
Meanwhile, the non-Arab foreigners were net sellers seizing 9.12% of the total markets, with a net equity of EGP 6.389 million, excluding the deals.
Egypt Bourse Stamp Tax – Day Two:
Egypt’s Central Clearing, Depository and Registry house (MCDR) started on Sunday collecting the recently-approved stamp tax on Egyptian stock exchange’s daily buying and selling transactions.
As pursuant to the recently-approved draft, the stamp tax shall be imposed on the Cairo bourse’s daily selling and buying transactions at 0.001. The stamp tax shall be also applied on the advertisements at 20%.
Capital market experts alongside EG-Finance, Division of Securities, Egyptian Capital Market Association (ECMA) and Egyptian Investment Management Association (EIMA) are urging the decision makers in Egypt to reconsider imposing the stamp tax on the bourse daily transactions amid the current sharp decline in the volumes and values of trades driven by the political and economic turbulence.
They further said imposing the stamp tax on the daily transactions will increase the burden on the investors by 40-65%. Accordingly, heavier burdens will likely drive the investors to exit the market soon.
