[2007-09-25]  Egypt indexes extend drops, OCI weighs
Egyptian stock indexes extended declines to a third session on Monday as shares of Orascom Construction Industries slid on profit-taking after hitting a year high last week, traders said.

Shares of OCI dropped 2.5 percent to 435 Egyptian pounds ($77.82), the stock's fourth consecutive losing session after hitting a year high of 465 pounds on Sept. 19.

"Orascom had a nice run and some people are probably taking profits," Hashem Ghoneim, chief executive of El Nour Securities, said.

Shares of Orascom Telecom also weighed on indexes, falling 2.1 percent to 71.40 pounds.

Shares of investment bank EFG-Hermes bucked the trend, jumping 2.1 percent to 46.30 pounds. The stock has gained for six of the past seven sessions. Investors were anticipating a boost in the bank's third-quarter earnings due to gains in Egypt's indexes, Ghoneim said.

Egypt's benchmark Case 30 index, which is up 21 percent this year, shed 0.99 percent to 8,436.36 points and the well-watched Hermes index lost 1.1 percent to 74,372.11 points. Both had hit record highs last week.

"The market was up quite some time without retracing properly," said Bassim Arida of CIBC brokerage. "It's only coming off for technical reasons, not fundamental reasons."

The market was trading at an average of 15 times expected 2007 earnings and 11 to 12 times expected 2008 earnings, he said.

Egypt's broader CIBC index slipped 0.43 percent to 386.38 points.



Source: © Reuters 2007.