Egyptian stocks failed to break out of their recession over the past week trading, moving up and down within a narrow band with sluggish trading volume as investors showed little desire to sell off their holdings at extremely low prices.
Shares of the Egyptian American Bank, however, were among the short list of best performers, ending Thursday’s trading higher at LE 51.8 per share compared to LE 48 a week ago. The stock’s bright fortunes only glittered after a general meeting at EAB last week approved a share-swap deal where minority shareholders in EAB would be able to swap one EAB share with 3.65 shares in Calyon. The offshoot of the deal will be renamed into Credit Agricole-Egypt.
Shares of MobiNil and Vodafone-Egypt were hit hard by the bear market and the approach of a final decision on the third mobile phone operation license, which should put pressure on their market share. MobiNil shares plunged to an 18 month-low of LE 120 per share in mid-week trading before recovering some of their earlier losses by the end of the week to close at LE 129 per share on Thursday compared with LE 128 a week ago.
Shares of Vodafone-Egypt followed in MobiNil’s footsteps, falling in mid-week trading to LE 75 per share and reversing the trend towards the end of the week to close at LE 78 on Thursday compared with LE 82 a week earlier.
The broad-based HFI index ended the past week trading at a 12-month low of 42,900 points compared with 43,500 points at the previous Thursday’s closing. Noozz
