CAIRO: Mobinil, Egypt s largest mobile operator by subscribers, posted its sharpest single-day decline in almost three weeks on Tuesday, weighing on Egypt s market, after UBS lowered its price target.
The Swiss bank cut its price target for Mobinil to LE 160 ($30) from LE 210, citing lower earnings forecasts and dividends paid in the year to date.
Shares of Mobinil, down about 30 percent this year, fell 4.29 percent to LE 142.02. UBS said it cut its 2008 to 2010 earnings forecasts for the firm by 13 to 15 percent, mainly to reflect slightly lower revenue-growth forecasts due to inflationary pressure on Egyptian consumers.
Mobinil helped drag Egypt s benchmark index CASE 30 to its third consecutive lower close. The index dropped 1 percent to 8,860.90 points, its lowest in more than nine months.
Heliopolis Housing, Egypt s second-largest real estate developer by market value, tumbled 7.8 percent to LE 58.31.
Shares of Egypt s monopoly fixed-line provider Telecom Egypt bucked the trend, gaining 2.95 percent to LE 15.73 as investors deemed them a bargain relative to earnings expectations.
With the market going down, people are looking for fundamentally good stocks, said Karim Hosny, account officer at Pharos Securities.
Mohamed Ebeid, trader at EFG-Hermes, said institutions considered the stock inexpensive and were buying. The company is trading at 8.54 times estimated 2008 earnings, according to Reuters data.
The well watched Hermes index retreated 0.93 percent to 768.41 points and the broader CIBC index shed 1.04 percent to 427 points. -Reuters
