Ahmed El-Sheikh, Chairman of The Egyptian Exchange (EGX), and Heba ElSerafi, Vice-Chairman of EGX, held a press conference to present the key developments in the stock market throughout 2024, as well as the significant achievements of EGX’s Strategy and the plan for the upcoming year.
El-Sheikh emphasized that 2024 experienced unprecedented growth, with historical records in key indices, trading volumes, market capitalization, and the number of new investors. Several targets outlined in EGX’s Strategy were successfully accomplished, with ongoing efforts to achieve additional goals.
El Sheikh indicated that 2024 marked several historical milestones, including the highest closing of EGX30 index on March 11, 2024, at 33,382 points. EGX Shariah index reached its highest closing on November 11, 2024, with 3,279 points. Additionally, EGX EWI 70 and EGX EWI 100 indices reached their highest closings on December 15, 2024, and December 8, 2024, respectively, at 8,614 and 11,800 points.
El-Sheikh further noted that 2024 marked the first listing of a bank in nearly 20 years, with the listing of The United Bank, which also experienced the fastest commencement of trading shares just after the offering.
EGX has continued its efforts to update its operational procedures and introduce innovative solutions to enhance the stock market environment. Notably, this included the first initial public offering (IPO) conducted through EGX’s OPR system; involving Act Financial. This IPO also marked, for the first time, that order placement was enabled for all brokerage firms.
EGX Chairman explained that we have witnessed the highest number of companies listed in a single year, with 11 new companies and one resulting from a split, bringing the total to 12 listed companies. Additionally, we saw the highest number of companies successfully transitioned from the small and medium enterprises market to the main market within a year, totaling 5 companies.
Heba El-Serafi stated that 2024 witnessed several key achievements:
- The total market capitalization of listed companies reached an all-time high of EGP 2.29 trillion by December 8, 2024.
- There was the highest increase in market capitalization within a single year, amounting to EGP450 billion, representing a 26.2% growth yearon-year growth.
- The successful execution of the IPO of "Act Financial" and the secondary offering of "The United Bank", with a total value of EGP5.61 billion.
- The highest number of executed transactions in a single year, amounting to approximately 30 million transactions.
- The highest number of traders in a single session, reaching around 50,000 traders On February 25, 2024.
- Trading values for listed stocks (including block trades) exceeded the one-trillion-pound mark for the first time, reflecting an increase of approximately 65% Y-o-Y. The total trading volume during the year reached around 267 billion securities.
- On July 10, 2024, the highest daily trading volume was recorded for listed stocks at EGP 24.5 billion.
- Treasury/Government bonds saw their highest trading volume on December 31, 2024, reaching EGP 131.3 billion.
- Treasury bills reached their highest trading volume on March 19, 2024, with EGP260.1 billion.
- Non-listed securities also saw strong performance, with their highest trading volume on August 29, 2024, at EGP16.4 billion.
- Daily trading volumes of listed stocks (including block trades) achieved their highest daily trading volume of 4.618 million securities on April 18, 2024.
- Daily trading volumes of Treasury bonds recorded their highest daily trading volume of 168.2 million securities on December 31, 2024.
- Daily trading volumes of Treasury bills achieved their highest daily trading volume of 12.2 million securities on March 19, 2024.
- Daily trading volumes of unlisted securities reached their highest daily trading volume of 1.273 million securities on October 31, 2024.
The year also marked a significant shift in investor demographics, with a notable increase in younger investors. The percentage of new individual investors in the 18-30 age group rose to 55.3%, while those aged 18-45 represented 87.8% of all new investors.
EGX launched its first Shariah-compliant index; EGX33 Shariah. Along with three mutual funds tracking this index. Additionally, EGX introduced the Investor Relations Register, which registered 290 qualified investor relations officers.
Strategic Development and Future Plans:
EGX Chairman also presented the achievements of EGX Strategy and the key areas for the upcoming period, including:
- Continuing to offer programs aimed at enhancing the skills of market participants, fostering effective communication and community dialogue with brokerage firms and other market stakeholders to identify participants' needs as a basis for development.
- Implementing and operating the new trading system according to the timeline agreed upon with Nasdaq.
- Advancing efforts to acquire a new trading surveillance system to enhance monitoring capabilities. Focusing on listing and offering securities of large private-sector companies, in addition to the anticipated offerings under the government privatization program, akin to major government offerings in regional markets.
- Enhancing the quality of listed securities by improving disclosure efficiency and effectiveness, raising compliance with listing rules, enhancing the performance of investor relations officers, and implementing further corrective measures to prevent repeat violations by listed companies.
El-Sheikh added: "We will continue to support the diversification of financial instruments in the stock exchange, whether through carbon certificates, renewable energy certificates, financial derivatives, exchange-traded fund (ETF) units, or index-tracking funds, particularly those focused on real estate."
