Beirut (APD) - The CASE 30 Index of the Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchanges (CASE) improved by 0.82% to close at 6,586 points on Thursday. In a trading week of only two days, it recovered from a drop of 1.63% to 6,532.36 points on Wednesday, which analysts attributed to fears caused by terrorist attacks on Monday and Wednesday.
"Media magnification and rumors of the terrorist attacks on Wednesday caused a panic among traders on CASE. This panic affected slightly the CASE 30 Index which went down by 1.63 %," Tarek Khayyat, financial analyst at the Egyptian financial research firm Prime Securities told APD on Thursday.
In a double terrorist strike, suicide bombers on Wednesday undertook attacks near the main base of the multinational peacekeeping force in Sinai close to the Gaza border. The two suicide bombers were killed in the attacks but caused no other casualties.
On Monday, a deadly bombing had targeted the Sinai resort town of Dahab, killing around 20 persons and injuring many others.
On Monday and Tuesday, Egypt's financial markets were closed for Easter and national holidays.
While the market moved up on Thursday, the volume of trade dropped to 13.55 million shares.
"On Thursday the volume of trade was the lowest since the beginning of 2006. This is most likely due to the fact that traders are closely watching the market to see if it sustains the panic caused by the terrorist attacks,'' Khayyat said.
"Traders have become more knowledgeable about market responses to such matters so they did not overreact to media exaggeration and rumors," he added in reference to terrorism that affected Egypt at several times in the past few years.
Concerning the performance of the market in the near future,Egyptian analysts expect the CASE 30 Index to improve next month as companies announce quarterly results. "We anticipate a significant growth in the profits of these companies and this will affect the market positively," Khayyat said.
"If we take the Egyptian Company for Mobile Services (MobiNil) as indicator, net profits of this company jumped by 21% to LE 311 million ($53.7 million) in the first quarter of 2006 when compared with Q1 2005," he added.
Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) last week announced full year profits that soared from about LE 182 million in 2004 to LE 514.15 million in 2005.
In another example for a promising development, analysts also expect a new real estate sector partnership between UAE-based Maged Al Futaim Group (MAF) and Egypt's Olympic Group to reflect positively on the stock market's performance. [TS]
By Shikrallah Nakhoul, APD Staff Writer in Beirut
APD (Arab Press Digest) 2006
