At the beginning of Thursday's trading session, the market lost more than 4 per cent on the back of Wednesday's football violence in Port Said before regaining some of its earlier losses in a day that saw total turnover of LE527 million.

"Such events could have caused the market to lose more of its value. The early fall in stock prices might have encouraged those buyers who haven't had a chance to benefit from the market boom since the start of the year," said Ashraf Abdel-Aziz, head of sales at Arabeya Online Securities.

Since New Years, the market's performance has improved markedly compared to last year, gaining almost 27 per cent over the course of the last month.

The market ended Thursday's session at 4,584 points.

"Investors aren't really panicking despite the scale of recent events," said Abdel-Aziz. "They're waiting to see what will happen in coming days."

The most active shares on the benchmark EGX30 index all lost value on Thursday except for three notable exceptions: the Egyptian Company for Mobile Services (MobiNil), Orascom Telecom Media & Technology Holding (OT&T) and Orascom Telecom Holding (OTH), which rose for the day by 2.5, 1.8 and 0.5 per cent respectively.

"OT&T has increased by around 20 per cent since its launch in late November," said one broker who requested anonymity. "It's normal that it maintains its gains. The three shares are related."

Of the market's 182 listed stocks, ten increased in value for the day while 167 declined. The broader-based EGX70 and EGX100 indices, meanwhile, lost 3.5 and 2.9 per cent respectively.

Egyptian and Arab investors remained net buyers throughout the session; foreigners represented the day's net sellers.

Beltone Financial Holding headed up the list of Thursday's losers, with its shares falling by 9.21 per cent for the day. Other top losers were Gezira Hotels & Tourism, National Cement, Modern Shorouk Printing & Packaging and GB AUTO.

Egypt's largest listed stock, Orascom Construction Industries (OCI), fell by 2.9 per cent for the day, while blue-chip Telecom Egypt fell by 0.7 per cent.