Despite the speech of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, when he donated half his fortune and his salary and rejected the state budget unless the deficit is reduced, stock indices stil fell towards the end of Tuesday’s trading session.
The main EGX30 index dropped 1.66 percent to 8,167.43 points, the small and medium stocks EGX70 index dropped by 1.56 percent to 583.3 points, and the broader EGX100 index dropped by 1.09 percent to close at 1,025.06 points.
Total trading stood at LE568.6 million and the market capital lost LE4.8 billion.
Capital market expert Mutassim al-Shahidy did not attribute the drop to the president’s speech but rather to the decline that took place at the Dubai Stock Exchange, the sharpest since the global financial crisis.
Ayman Metwally, chairman of the EG-Finance Association, expected indices to rise by the end of June. “The president donating half his salary signals the application of a maximum wage,” he said. “This and reducing the deficit would prompt the economy to recover eventually.”
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
