Egypt Market Watch | May 19th 2015: Egypt stocks surge as bliss continues on tax cessation

Cairo, Egypt (Capital Markets in Africa):-Egyptian equity market continued yesterday positive momentum that was spurred by the government’s decision to suspend new capital gain tax implementation for two years. The market capitalisation rose by EGP 1.20 billion compared to yesterday’s gain of EGP 20.3 billion to close at EGP 502.475 billion.

The benchmark index EGX30 commenced trading with strong gains that took it above the 9,000 mark. But, retreated to a gain of 0.9% to close the day at 8,877.68 points (-0.55 percent year-to-date performance). On the same note, the small and mid-cap index EGX70 gained 0.97 percent to settle at 473.63 points (-16.24 percent year-to-date return), and the broader index EGX100 went up by 1.09 percent to 990.46 points (-9.17 percent year to date performance). Likewise, the EGX20 capped index rose by 1.77 percent to close at 9,265.25 points (-7.36 percent year-to-date).

In the same positive mood, Tuesday’s turnover amounted to EGP 834.5 million, while traded volume reached 258.3 million shares. The market’s heaviest weight CIB was the top active in terms of turnover, after 1.7 million shares were exchanged at more than EGP 103 million. Meanwhile, telecom company OTMT was the most active with traded volume exceeding 88.5 million shares. In addition, Egyptian traders and Arab traders were net buyers by EGP 26.7 million and EGP 28.5 million in a row, while foreign traders ended as net sellers by EGP 55.2 million.

The market sentiment was positive today (measured as gainers/losers ratio), out of the 179 securities traded today, 87 headed north, 66 headed south and 26 remained flat. On the gainers side, the top performance were Amer Group Holding surged by 10.75 percent to close the day at EGP 1.01 and International Co For Investment & Development went up by 9.42 percent with closing price of EGP 8.48. In the like mind, Orascom Telecom Media And Technology Holding surged by 8.70 percent to close at EGP 1.00 and United Arab Shipping advanced 8.64 percent to trade at EGP 0.88. On the losers side, topping the league were TransOceans Tours, Misr National Steel – Ataqa, National Cement, and Nozha International Hospital fell by 10.00 percent (to close at US$ 0.09), 6.81 percent (to settle at EGP 10.26), 6.22 percent (to trade at EGP 10.10) and 6.19 percent (to close at EGP 27.75) respectively.

From the sector perspectives, topping the gainer list were Travel & Leisure, Personal and Household Product sector and Real Estate sector advanced by 3.79 percent, 2.69 percent and 2.67 percent respectively. While Chemicals sector index  and Basic Resources sector index gave up 2.46 percent and 1.97 percent respectively to top the losers’ chart.