[2007-09-29]  Egyptian shares extend gains, CIB leads
Shares of Commercial International Bank (CIB) paced a second consecutive day of gains for Egypt's main indexes on Thursday as foreign investors bought large caps, brokers said.

"Foreigners were still buying Egyptian blue chips today as world wide markets were in a healthy state," said Mohamed Kotb of Jazira Asset Management.

World stocks powered ahead on Thursday and the dollar hit another low against the euro as investors banked on more U.S. interest rate cuts and at least temporarily set aside simmering fears about global credit.

Eissa Fathi Eissa of the Strategic Company for Securities said foreign investors were defending their portfolios as "they control more than 50 percent of market capitalisation in the Egyptian market," he added.

Heavily-traded CIB gained 3.8 percent to last trade at 76.99 Egyptian pounds ($13.77) while Orascom Construction Industries OCI rose about 2 percent to 468.53 pounds.

Orascom Telecom, another index heavyweight attracting foreign interest, rose 1.4 percent to last trade at 73 pounds.

Overall, Egypt's benchmark Case 30 index gained 1.4 percent to 8,647.19 points and the well-watched Hermes index rose 1.2 percent to 75,979.08 points. The broader CIBC index slipped 0.15 percent to 384.42 points.

Foreign investors made up 14.4 percent of the day's trade. Local and Gulf Arab investors were net sellers.

Shares in EFG Hermes bucked the market trend, losing 0.3 percent to last trade at 45.40 pounds.

"This is a sort of temporary consolidation as the stock has rallied lately," Kotb said.

($1 = 5.59 Egyptian pounds)



Source: © Reuters 2007.