Another round of losses, as fears build (Photo: Reuters)
Trade on Egypt's stock exchange remained low on Thursday as political uncertainty continued to cast its shadow on the market.
The benchmark EGX30 dropped a further 1.87 per cent to close out the week at 4,032 points with trading volume in an uneventful session reaching LE191 million ($31.5m).
It was the fourth day of losses this week, taking the main index to a five-month low. It has tumbled 17 per cent since the presidential elections began in May.
"With all the uncertainty and the delay of an announcement for Egypt's new president the market is facing sellers across the board," said an afternoon note from Cairo-based Naeem Brokerage.
Egypt is seeing some of its tensest days since its uprising began in early 2011, with the official results of a divisive presidential runoff not coming until the weekend but both camps already claiming victory.
The delay frayed nerves as the Muslim Brotherhood threatened to take to the streets in protest at moves by the ruling generals to deny them power.
"It is political concern," Osama Mourad of Arab Finance Brokerage told Reuters. "We are still waiting for election results, for Mubarak to die and to see what will happen in Tahrir on Friday."
The market, however, is not in a panic mode, according to Naeem
"[Today's trading] was just buyers fishing for lower prices and sitting on the sidelines," its note said.
From the day's 157 listed stocks, 26 gained in value and 114 declined with the rest holding steady.
The day's heaviest trade was in Egypt's largest-listed firm, Orascom Construction Industries, which slipped 1.6 per cent, and Orascom Telecom Media & Technology, down 0.76 per cent.
Such losses may be set to continue, as investors -- both local and foreign -- are wary of injecting extra funds into the market or even reinvesting their profits.
Tamer El-Soukkary, a former investor in the Egyptian market told Ahram Online he lost almost all the "several million" he had invested in the market before January 2011's 18-day uprising which toppled Mubarak.
Believing the same conditions that brought his loss in early 2011 are still in place, he has refused to enter the market ever since.
"All indications say that the market is unstable, and that what happened in January could very well happen again," the investor told Ahram Online.
El-Sokkary believes that electing a president is not enough to restore confidence to the market.
"I need the country to be stable for months before I gain the confidence to reinvest," he said.
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