Egypt's stocks up Wednesday, hit whopping daily turnover

Despite protests outside the Egyptian bourse Wednesday, strong trading saw a five-month high in turnover Egypt’s stocks ended up in Wednesday trading to hit a whopping five-month high in daily turnover of LE1 billion on Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) transactions as Arab investors sold around 2.5 million shares to foreign institutions worth LE691.7 million. “The high is probably an impact of the newly announced merging between OCI and it’s US-based fertilizer company to establish OCI NV,” said Ashraf Abdel-Aziz, head of institutional sales at Arabeya Online Securities. On Friday, it was reported that a group of US investors, led by Bill Gates-owned Cascade Investment LLC, committed approximately $1 billion for a stake in OCI NV, with experts expecting the deal to boost investor confidence in Egypt's main benchmark EGX30. The main EGX30 index rose by 0.16 per cent, recording 5,689.23 points in a session seeing foreign investors and Egyptians net-buyers with LE545 million and LE14.2 million respectively, despite protests outside the headquarters of the Egyptian bourse. Earlier on Wednesday, the Alhy Ultras, fans of Egyptian football club Ahly, besieged the Stock Exchange in downtown Cairo, demanding justice for over 70 fans killed in Port Said in February 2012. The head of the exchange, Mohamed Omran, told Ahram Online the protest had not interrupted trading. The Stock Exchange adopted procedures to deal with the protest, including operating at other locations, he added. The broader EGX70 index also rose by one per cent. The heavyweight OCI was down one per cent Wednesday, reaching LE266 per share, while another blue chip stock, Commercial International Bank, rose by 0.3 per cent. Property shares soared headed by Talaat Mostafa Group, Palm Hills Development and Six of October Development and Investment up 1.6, 0.4 and three per cent respectively. From Ahramonline