CAIRO: Egyptian shares jumped, ending nine days of declines, after Commercial International Bank (CIB) announced it is doubling its capital with a one-for-one bonus share.
Gains in all but one stock boosted the benchmark index, which tracked advances in markets abroad. The index rose 2.9 percent to 6,021 points.
"The market has gone down a lot. It’s normal for it to jump," said Hashem Ghoneim of Pyramids Capital. "It’s still very low volume and mostly institutional buying. It makes me worry that this rise is not sustainable."
CIB surged 6.7 percent. The capital increase will enhance the bank’s ability to lend and stabilize its balance sheet, while the new shares will make Egypt’s biggest private bank more tradeable on the exchange, brokers said.
Telecom companies gained, with Telecom Egypt rising 4 percent, Mobinil 3.3 percent and Orascom Telecom 3.1 percent.
Egypt Kuwait Holding slipped 0.7 percent.
