CAIRO - For the second day in a row, Egyptian shares rose on Thursday on local and Arab buying, traders said. Egypt's benchmark index EGX 30 added 0.1 per cent, ending the week at 5,097.32 points. The broader indexes EGX 70 and EGX 100 gained 0.95 and 0.48 per cent to 609.27 and 934.75 points respectively. Volume totalled LE465 million ($78 million), they added. Locals and Arabs made net purchases worth LE31.7 million and LE1.8 million respectively. Non-Arab investors made net sell-offs worth LE33.5 million, according to Bourse data. Egypt's heavyweight Commercial International Bank (CIB) slipped by 0.82 per cent to LE26.77 per share. EFG-Hermes, the country's biggest investment bank by market value, added 0.2 per cent to LE20.05 per share. Orascom Construction Industries rose by 1.14 per cent to LE258.89 per share. Orascom Telecom, the largest Arab mobile operator by subscribers, shed 0.5 per cent LE3.95 per share. Mobinil plunged by 2.54 per cent to LE116.41 per share. Private equity firm Citadel Capital said the regulator had agreed to its plans to call a shareholders' meeting that will seek approval to raise its capital, according to Reuters. The Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority previously refused Citadel's request to raise its issued capital to LE4.35 billion. Citadel said at the time it would challenge the decision. Egypt's market looks set to be buffeted again next week by the political turbulence that weighed on the benchmark index , pushing it down more than seven per cent in the first three days of this week. Protesters have been camped in Cairo's Tahrir Square since Friday, angry at what they consider to be too slow a pace of reform by the ruling military council. The protest has increasingly targeted the generals running the country and is one of the longest since it took over from former president Hosni Mubarak following mass protests against rising prices, poverty, unemployment and years of authoritarian rule. "Investors will be watching local political developments closely, while levels of foreign risk appetite will also be driven by fiscal and debt developments in the US and the Eurozone," said Simon Kitchen, strategist for EFG-Hermes. Analysts and traders said they saw few signs the political turbulence calming down in coming days, particularly after protesters rejected pledges made by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf on Monday as inadequate. Hashem Ghoneim, vice President of Pyramids Capital, recommended investors eye dollar-denominated stocks to whether the turbulence, such as Maridive and Oil Services and EgyptKuwait Holding , adding Telecom Egypt was another safe-haven pick.
