Foreign interest in Orascom Construction Industries (OCI), on expectations of strong upcoming results, helped pushed up the Egyptian stock market on Sunday, traders said. The benchmark Hermes climbed back up to levels near an all-time high of just over 40,000, hit in March. The Hermes closed up 694.10 points, or 1.8 percent, at 38,969.72, down from a session high of 39,354.80 points. The broader CIBC index closed up 1.43 points, or 1 percent, at 145.83 points. "OCI attracted much attention because it is expected to post strong first-quarter results soon," said Yasser Hassanein of Dynamic Securities. OCI officials were not immediately available to comment.
OCI last traded up 9.32 Egyptian pounds ($1.61), or 6.7 percent, at 149 pounds.
The traders also said the cement sector was attracting some attention as more buyers came into the market.
Asec Cement Co, one of the day's busiest stocks, rose because new management and strong recent results made it one of the sector's most attractive stocks, the traders added.
The firm's stock last traded up 1.47 pounds, or 6.3 percent, at 24.98 pounds.
Asec announced last week it made a net profit of 96.18 million pounds in the first quarter of 2005, compared to 0.71 million pounds in the same period a year earlier.
INTERBANK RATE RISES: The median overnight interbank rate on the Egyptian pound ticked up to 11-1/8 percent on Sunday from 11 percent on Thursday towards the end of a central bank period for calculating banks' reserves, dealers said.
Many banks were still looking for funds before the end of the two-week period on Monday, the dealers added.
"Most of the banks were still looking for funds today," one of the dealers said.
The dealers said rates usually fell the day before the end of the period. It was possible banks had used their funds to take part in auctions in the previous week and were now short of funds close to the end of the period, they added.
Five out of nine banks contacted by Reuters dealt overnight money at rates of between 11 and 11-1/2 percent, compared to a range of between 10-3/4 and 11-1/2 percent on Thursday.
None of the banks traded one-week money. In the previous session three out of nine banks dealt one-week money at rates of between 11 and 11-1/2 percent.
The overnight CAIBOR rate rose to 10.5238 percent from 10.5000 percent on Thursday. The one-week CAIBOR rate rose to 10.7827 percent from 10.7351 percent in the previous session.
On the foreign exchange market, the pound was last traded at 5.7933 to the dollar at 1000 GMT, broadly unchanged from Thursday's closing weighted average of 5.7930 pounds.
The pound has stabilised at around 5.79 pounds to the dollar after strengthening from more than 6.20 pounds in the weeks after the official launch of a dollar interbank market in December.
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