EGX30 falls 13.2% in 2018 amid emerging markets sell-off
**#1 The Egyptian bourse’s benchmark EGX30 index fell 13.2% in 2018 amid global markets fluctuations and the emerging markets sell-off, EGX Chairman Mohamed Farid said. Farid noted that EGX50 also fell 16.3% last year. Foreign purchases in the EGX dropped to EGP 5.73 bn in 2018 from EGP 9.55 bn the year before, an annual report showed (pdf).
Volumes down but values are up: Trade volumes declined to 60.8 bn securities from 77.9 bn the previous year despite total trades values rising 7.92%, registering EGP 358.5 bn from around EGP 332.2 bn in 2017. The number of transactions went down last year to 6.3 mn from 7 mn.
The number of new investors went up 8.5%, reaching 24,000 from 22,000 last year and the number of foreign institutions that entered the market went up to 1,187 from 1,164 last year.
Looking ahead, Egypt is also planning to launch a new index to replace one of its five indices before the end of 1Q2019 as part of efforts to restructure its stock market.