EFG-Hermes drags stocks down

CAIRO: Retail market leader EFG-Hermes dragged Egyptian stocks down on Tuesday in a market driven by anxieties over a 16 percent decline in the benchmark index over the past five weeks, brokers said. In a market lacking news, small investors watched shares in the investment bank fall and many of them decided to reduce their overall exposure, the brokers added. A lot of the uncertainty has to do with EFG and it’s retail driven. That s caused much of the downturn, said broker Yasser Hassanein of Dynamic Securities. Local institutions are waiting on the sidelines and foreign investors are buying very selectively, he added. EFG-Hermes, despite reporting a massive increase in 2005 profits on Sunday, fell LE 9.47 ($1.65) or 6.7 percent to last trade at LE 131.00, less than half what it was worth when it peaked in late January at LE 285.00. The pessimistic sentiment hit all the top 10 most traded shares, including Ezz Steel Rebars, the Orascom family of companies and Oriental Weavers. Ezz Steel had helped pull the market up on Monday but on Tuesday it slipped 5.3 percent to last trade at LE 79.85. The benchmark Hermes index lost 862.02 points or 1.5 percent to close at 58,280.63. The broader CIBC index fell 3.82 points, or 1.6 percent, to 230.50 points. Reuters