Creating investors
Potential investors and budding analysts were granted a view of the Egyptian stock market in Alexandria.
Sherine Abdel-Razek roamed the conference halls
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina welcomed on Sunday an unusual influx of university students who moved between the first floor conference halls to listen to market experts simplifying stock market jargon. Those young people are the main target of the conference, said the head of the Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchange (CASE) Sameh El-Turguman in a speech inaugurating his organisation's second "Step by Step" conference on the basics of stock market investment. The aim of the conference, held a year and a half after the first one, is to boost the general public's awareness of, and correct misconceptions about, investing in the capital market. While the first conference had taken place in Cairo over three days, CASE decided to hold the following conferences in different governorates for only one day each.
Starting with simple concepts like "how to invest in the stock market" and "what are bonds?" speakers in eight open sessions explained to the attendees the basics of the stock market. "I am taking a course in investment this semester. We study technical analysis but it is much simpler to hear it here as the lecturers are market experts who use real case studies of companies to show us how to analyse existing data and predict future performance," a 20-year-old commerce student told Al-Ahram Weekly.
"The stock exchange asked us to make our presentations simple and educational," said one of the speakers, Ayman Waked, head of technical analysis in Sigma Securities. "Such educational conferences raise investment awareness worldwide. By making concepts like investment, risk and return familiar and understandable, you are helping potential investors and young people take their first step on the road to investment," Waked said.
While university students accounted for the majority of the attendees, people of other age groups also showed up either to discuss their problems as investors in the market or to understand a little bit more about market techniques. "I bought shares a long time ago and kept them," Yehia El-Deqen, a pharmacist in his late 50s who attended most of these sessions with his wife, told the Weekly. "They are losing and I neither understood why nor know what are my rights as a shareholder in this company. Now in a way I have a better understanding. At least I know why the company isn't distributing coupons." However El-Deqen said that he wished that the speakers' list had included representatives of listed high- performance companies to tell investors about their experience in the market.
This conference was much smaller than the first. Only four brokerage companies participated this time compared to 19 last time. "This is due to the fact that it was held in Alexandria and there are only a few brokerage companies with branches here," said Sherif El-Amrawi, representative of the Al-Takamol Securities. "Also brokerage companies have to pay a participation fee of LE1,000 for just one day. Not all companies are willing to pay this in addition to the cost of transportation to Alexandria," he added.
The conference nevertheless did not fail to awaken the students' interest. A CASE booth in the hall between the conference rooms displayed free educational brochures on investing, in addition to copies of the presentations given by each speaker. One of the main attractions in the booth was the monitor showing the movements of the listed shares during the trading session. "Students liked it and one of them even asked whether he could subscribe to get the service on his computer," said one IT official from CASE.
Together with the sessions the conference included an exhibition where the sponsors of the conference offered their products. Young people visiting the Misr International Bank booth were introduced to the bank's debit card scheme targeting youth from 16-23. "They are willing to know more about the scheme and many of them filled out applications to obtain the card. We are targeting this age group because we know that if they get used to using debit cards now, they will grow up with this culture and we may have them as users of the bank's other similar products," said Abeer El-Habashi, head of customer relations department in the MIB's Safiya Zaghlul branch. The Vodafone booth was also relatively busy with small investors interested in knowing more about the company's Live Stock service which offers subscribers access to information about their stocks.
The joint EFG--Hermes/Commercial International Brokerage Company booth offered some research papers on the market and economy, which attending students found very useful. "I am glad I came," said one student in his third year at the Faculty of Commerce, who was rushing to attend a conference session. "My tutor wanted a report on the telecom sector and now I can use the updated information in these reports."
