Winners rise in Cairo stocks as Egypt starts to cut rates

Cairo-traded stocks ranging from real estate to consumer-focused companies, industrials and banks are set to outperform local and emerging-market peers as interest rates drop, analysts and investors predict. After the Egyptian central bank cut its key rate from a record level last week, investors are likely to scour the stock market to replace returns from high-yielding deposits.

Companies will benefit from access to cheaper credit in the Arab world’s most-populous country.

Cairo’s benchmark EGX 30 index advanced 1.7 percent in the three sessions following the central bank’s 100 basis point reduction in its key rate to 17.75 percent on Feb. 15, the first cut since the currency was floated in November 2016.

Since then, the equities gauge has soared more than 70 percent.