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EGX edges up in week amid foreign buying

EGX edges up in week amid foreign buying
(Photo credit: Arabianeye-Reuters)

Cairo – Mubasher: The Egyptian Exchange (EGX) benchmark EGX30 index ended the week on a positive note, albeit with marginal gains of 0.35% or 45.4 points to close Thursday at 12,952.38 points amid foreign buying versus local and Arab selling.

Turnover on the index amounted to EGP 3.8 billion in the week ended Thursday, 18 May, after 1.38 billion shares were exchanged.

The EGX's heaviest weighted stock Commercial International Bank – Egypt (CIB) grew 0.18% over the week, to close at EGP 77, following a turnover of EGP 264.6 million and traded volume of 3.4 million shares.

Commenting on the Egyptian bourse's weekly performance, head of technical research at The Roots Stock Brokerage House Sameh Gharib noted that the continued emergence of buying power helped boost the EGX this week.

The benchmark index has attempted to surpass the level of 13,050 points for the second week in a row, the analyst said, indicating that the index's failure to pass that level was due to selling pressures in 13,000 points.

Despite these pressures, trading values exceeded EGP 1 billion in some sessions on the back of news of companies being added to and removed from the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, which prompted institutional investors to switch some positions in these companies, Gharib added.

The analysts expects the benchmark EGX30 index to cling to the level of 12,860 points and rebound upwards towards 13,050 next week, indicating that passing that barrier would open the way for the index to rise towards 13,200 and 13,400 points.

The bourse's EGX70 and EGX100 indices increased 0.64% and 1.49% during the week to close at 591.14 points and 1,380.54 points.

Meanwhile, the equal weight EGX50 index shed 0.40% to 2,057.07 points.

Market capitalisation shed EGP 484.36 million over the week to close at EGP 666.86 billion.

Foreign investor trading resulted in net buying of EGP 265.6 million versus net selling by Egyptian and Arab investors of EGP 151.6 million and EGP 114 million, respectively.

Retail investors accounted for 60.6% of the bourse's trades, logging net sales worth EGP 67.9 million last week, whereas institutional investors made up the remaining 39.4% with net buying of EGP 67.9 million.