CAIRO: Egypt’s benchmark index inched up in weak volume as investors bet that steady gains since early May have factored in most potential improvement in earnings in the second quarter, traders said.
The index closed 0.1 percent higher at 5,511 points, with all but eight stocks gaining.
Ajwa Food Industries was the index’s biggest gainer, jumping 9.9 percent, and the bourse’s eighth most active stock, with shares worth more than LE 12.3 million ($2.1 million) changing hands.
Heavyweights that gained include Palm Hills, up 4.9 percent, Ezz Steel, up 4 percent, and private equity firm Citadel Capital, up 0.9 percent.
The index has recouped only some of the ground lost during a popular uprising that toppled Egypt’s president in February, after dipping below 4,900 points in March and then again in early May. The EGX30 is still down 23 percent this year.
Traders said the mood seems divided between optimists who say the damage to earnings from the economic contraction in the first quarter could be overdone and other investors who are loath to commit funds before second-quarter results.
"I don’t think selling is an option now. The current levels are still low, and we cannot take such a decision before witnessing second-quarter results," said one Cairo trader.
