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Monday, 27 November 2017

EGX rises 0.8% on Sunday, despite Friday’s deadly attack on North Sinai

“Holders of Egyptian stocks seem to have developed thick skin,” Ahmed Feteha and Andrew Blackman write for Bloomberg. The EGX 30 rose 0.8% yesterday, despite Friday’s deadly terror attack on a mosque in North Sinai, which claimed more than 300 lives and is considered the most brutal attack on Egypt in its modern-day history. Previous incidents, such as the attack on a police convoy on the Wahat road last month and the church bombings in April, saw the EGX drop only marginally and recover within the span of two-to-three days at most. “No one is in shock as investors have, unfortunately, become immune to such events,” said Arqaam Capital’s director of MENA sales, our friend Ashraf Akhnoukh. “16 members of the benchmark EGX 30 Index gained, while 10 declined and four were unchanged. Eastern Tobacco rose 3.8% and ElSewedy Electric Co. added 2.3%. The gauge has advanced 15% this year,” Bloomberg notes.

That said: Trading was light, with total turnover at EGP 833 mn, about 16% below the trailing 90-day average.

Meanwhile, on the ground in Sinai: The Armed Forces continued to carry out retaliatory air strikes against known terrorist hideouts where they believe Friday’s assailants are taking cover, destroying caches of weapons and ammunition, they said in a statement.

Sinai Bedouin call for cooperation with the Armed Forces: The Union of Sinai Tribes issued a statement on its Facebook page calling for solidarity with the Egyptian Army in the war on terror.

Sufis will go forward with celebration of the Prophet’s birthday on Friday: The Sufi community, which Daesh accuses of heresy, also decided in defiance to proceed with planned celebrations this coming Friday to mark Prophet’s Muhammad’s birthday, canceling only their annual “procession from Cairo’s Salah al-Jaafari mosque to the Al-Hussein mosque” to avoid overtaxing security forces, they said in a statement.

Further afield, Israel has reportedly offered to help Egypt in Sinai, according to the Times of Israel. “The Israeli defense establishment expressed its sympathies and, as always, is willing to lend a hand to any country in order to help fight terror,” an Israeli security official said Sunday. He said that the nature of this assistance will be determined by the Israeli cabinet at a later point. Egyptian authorities have yet to confirm or deny that they requested Israel allow more troops to enter Sinai.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman also launched the first high-level meeting of the KSA-led military alliance of Muslim nations against terrorism, vowing that extremists will no longer “tarnish our beautiful religion.”

Ankara (of all places) will be flying its flags at half-mast today in mourning for the victims of the weekend terror attack, the Anadolu Agency says. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the attack in a speech yesterday, describing those responsible as “murderers” with “no relation to Islam.”

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