Cairo And Alexandria Stock Exchanges Performance

CASE has exhibited a remarkable performance on Thursday 3/3/2005 with CASE 30 index breaking the threshold of 4000 points to close at 4036.49 points ; an increase of 57.18% over 1/1/2005. Moreover, the number of transactions soared by 20.28% over the previous day, mounting to 16746 trades. Furthermore, market capitalization exceeded for the first time, since beginning of the nineties, the level of L.E 300 billion, to culminate at L.E 302 billion, an increase of 29.18% (L.E 68 billion) over 1/1/2005, despite the decrease in the number of listed companies from 795 in 3/3/2005 to 766 I 1/1/2005.

This strong performance came in the first day of activating the new automated linking system between the trading system in CASE and the clearing system in Misr Clearing, Settlement, Depository and Registry which is a real reflection of its success.

The new system has been put in place to ensure investor protection as it guarantees the availability of the security before effecting the selling transaction (the correct or the wrongly executed ones), which in turn ensures timely and proper settlement, on one hand and a reduction in the number of cancelled transactions, on the other.

Moreover, linking the trading and the clearing systems is considered as the first step towards the implementation of further tools to increase market liquidity and turnover such as the margin trading and short selling currently in the pipeline.