[2008-07-07]  Egypt shares continue decline on global market woes
Egypt's benchmark index fell over 4 percent on Sunday, led by declines on Orascom Telecom and Orascom Construction Industries on the first trading day after world stocks fell on fears of further banking write-downs, traders said.

"The drop is mainly from the GDRs (global depositary receipts) on Thursday and Friday. For example, OT's GDR price lost almost 10 percent in only two days," Mohamed Kotb of Jazira Asset Management said.

The telecom giant's stock saw a sharp drop on Sunday, last trading 8.3 percent down at 64.17 Egyptian pounds after its London-listed stock fell 3.6 percent on to $59.27 at close of trade on Friday.

Kotb said that Orascom Construction shares, which ended 4.5 percent down at 360 pounds, had also been hit by selling on their GDRs, which last traded 0.6 percent down at $134.90 on Friday.

Both Orascoms together constitute almost 50 percent of the benchmark CASE 30 index, which lost 4.3 percent to close at 9,526.91 points.

"It's a global trend. All markets worldwide are down, there's no positive picture, no positive news," said Teymour el-Derini of Beltone Financial.

Derini said Arab investors were selling to adjust their portfolios to favour their own stock markets, which were performing better than Egypt's. Arab investors were the day's only net sellers, by 8.2 million pounds, according to the stock exchange.

Investment bank EFG-Hermes also saw its shares decline, last trading 4.5 percent lower at 46.03 pounds, while Ezz Steel lost 4.7 percent to 76.03 pounds.

The broader CIBC index lost 3.6 percent to 509.44 points. The Hermes index fell 3.9 percent to 829.88 points.


Source: © Reuters 2008.