Egypt Market Watch | May 14th 2015: Blood continues on Egypt’s equity markets Street

Cairo, Egypt (Capital Markets in Africa):- The Egyptian Exchange (EGX) plunged further today to its five-week lowest, and shedding off nearly EGP 9.6 billion of its capitalisation to close at EGP 482.232 billion, as investor sentiment continues over the uncertain about the proposed capital gains tax.

The benchmark index EGX30 fell 2.52 percent or 214.91 points to close at 8526.43 points; its lowest level since 17 December, 2014. This amounted to a year-to-date performance of -6.98 percent. On the same note, the small and mid-cap index EGX70  decelerated by 2.91% to 440.64 points (-22.24 percent year-to-date return), while the broader index EGX100 drooped 2.27% to 923.01 points (-15.32 percent year to date performance). Likewise, the EGX20 capped fell 3.69 percent to close at 8501.34 points.

On similar note, today’s traded volume amounted to 173.8 million shares, while turnover reached EGP 601 million against EGP 1.25 billion and 165 million shares previously respectively. As a result of concern about the capital gain tax, foreign traders were net sellers by EGP 47 million, while national and Arab traders were net buyers by EGP 2 million and EGP 45 million in a row. Similarly, institutional traders headed for selling (for the same reason on capital tax uncertainty), while retail traders were mostly buyers.

The market sentiment was negative today (measured as gainers/losers ratio), out of the 177 companies traded today, 133 moved down, 18 moved up and 26 remained unchanged. Tracking stock performance, East Delta Flour Mills Egypt gained 6.53 percent to close at EGP 40.48 and Nozha International Hospital Egypt surged by 5.28 percent to end the trading session at EGP 28.50. Also, Development & Engineering Consultants Egypt and Alexandria New Medical Center, Egypt both advanced by 4.33 (to trade at EGP 11.32) percent and 3.43 percent (to settle at EGP 20.18) respectively. On the laggard league, Societe Arabe Internationale De Banque (SAIB), El Ezz Porcelain (Gemma), Memphis Pharmaceuticals and AJWA for Food Industries company Egypt lost 9.95 percent, 9.30 percent, 9.30 percent and 8.43 percent respectively.

From the sector perspectives, nearly all the sector got hit apart from Chemicals sector index (marginally gained 0.03 percent but with -15.31 percent year-to-date performance). Whereas, Basic Resources (loss 6.93 percent and -26.89 percent year-to-date performance), Telecommunications (went down 5.77 percent and -33.66 percent year-to-date performance ), Real Estate (declined by 4.34 percent and -10.76 percent year-to-date performance) and Financial Services excluding Banks (plummeted by 3.90 percent but with a 22.40 percent year-to-date return) sectors got the highest hit.