The Egyptian Exchange has opened Thursday's session posting gains of EGP 1.6 billion powered by the Egyptian court's ruling that reversed the freezing asset decree against the 21 local and Arab businessmen. The capital market has amounted to EGP 360.123 billion, according to data compiled by Amwal Al Ghad English at 10:58 a.m. Cairo time (08:58 GMT) during Thursday's opening session. The EGX indices opened in green notes during the opening. Benchmark EGX30 inched up by 0.58% to 5191.62 p; while EGX20 surged by 0.86% to 6116.86 p. Meanwhile, the mid- and small-cap index, the EGX70 edged up by 0.46% to 452.05 p. Price index EGX100 rose by 0.43% to 752.96 p. Cairo Criminal Court on Wednesday had reversed an asset freeze decree against a number of prominent businessmen that had been ordered by the prosecutor-general earlier this week. On Sunday evening, Egyptian Prosecutor-General Talaat Abdullah ordered the assets of 21 people, including Egyptian, Saudi and Emirati businessmen and officials at several Egyptian brokerage firms and banks, frozen. All those that had their assets frozen remain under investigation for alleged Egyptian stock market manipulation regarding the 2007 sale of El-Watany Bank of Egypt to the National Bank of Kuwait. During Thursday's opening session, the trading volume has reached 10.773 million securities worth EGP 23.225 million, exchanged 1.455 transactions. This was after trading in 78 listed securities; 1 declined, 54 advanced; while 23 keeping their previous levels. Egyptians and Arabs' alertness have backed EGX's opening gains amid the court's ruling. Egyptians and Arabs were net buyers seizing 74.47% and 6.24% respectively, of the total markets, with a net equity of EGP 2.935 million and EGP 1.198 million excluding the deals. Meanwhile, the non-Arab foreign were net sellers seizing 19.29% of the total markets, with a net equity of EGP 4.133 million excluding the deals. Nine of the men targeted by the freeze had been initially indicted in May of last year, including ousted President Hosni Mubarak's two sons, Gamal and Alaa; EFG-Hermes CEOs Yasser El-Mallawany and Hassan Heikal; former EFG-Hermes CEO Amr El-Kady; and four others.
