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Egypt key stock index falls 16.5 percent

“There's panic, everything is down, it's incredible,” Ahmed Hefnawi, an analyst with major investment bank EFG Hermes, told AFP.

The CASE-30 plummeted by 16.5 percent from 7,059 to 5,894 points after trading opened for the first time since September 29 following a string of public holidays.

“All sectors have been hit, with losses of 65 percent on some stocks,” said Hefnawi. His bank's EFG-Hermes index fell 12.5 percent on Tuesday.

All shares were down between five and 65 percent.

Trading was halted in more than 30 stocks after they fell the maximum they are allowed to drop, Egypt's official MENA news agency reported. It did not say what stocks were affected.

Shares in two of the top traded companies, regional mobile giant Orascom Telecom and the bourse's most heavily traded stock by turnover, Orascom for Construction Industries, dropped 10.4 percent and 20.2 percent respectively.

MENA quoted analysts as saying they “expected heavy sales and consequent market sharp decline in line with (Monday's) global markets collapse.”

The index is now at its lowest level since September 2006, after almost doubling in value over the last four years to hit a high of 12,000 points in May.