Egyptian stocks are tumbling for a third session, hit by uncertainty over the country's economic direction following a controversial ruling against a foreign-owned company.
The benchmark EGX30 has plunged 2.1 per cent to 5,576 points a half-hour before the close of the week's final session, still showing the impact of a Tuesday court order demanding international gold producer Centamin halt operations at its local Sukari mine.
"There is disturbance over the gold-mine ruling and there's also a lack of clarity on the IMF loan and financial restructuring [mandated by the Fund]. Investors are still seeing political risk," Walaa Hazem, vice president for asset management at HC Securities & Investment, told Ahram Online.
An IMF delegation arrived in Cairo on Tuesday to discuss a long-awaited $4.8 billion loan, contingent upon Egypt's government carrying out substantial economic reforms.
All but two high-caps are seeing significant losses, led by the Commercial International Bank, down 3.14 per cent, and the Talaat Moustafa Group, down 5.11 per cent.
Non-Arab investors are the major sellers, offloading around LE6.6 million more in stocks than they have bought.
The main index tumbled around 3 per cent over the previous two sessions.
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