EGX30 vs EGX70 — Which Index Should You Track?

The Egyptian Exchange publishes several price indices, but the three most widely followed are EGX30, EGX70, and EGX100. Every investor in the Egyptian market should understand what each one measures and why they often move in different directions on the same day. Picking the wrong benchmark is one of the most common reasons retail investors misjudge their own portfolio performance.

EGX30 is the flagship blue-chip index. It tracks the 30 most actively traded and largest companies by market capitalization listed on the EGX. The weighting methodology is free-float adjusted market capitalization with a per-constituent cap (historically 15%, sometimes lowered to 10% in the Capped variant) to prevent any single company from dominating the index. Constituents are reviewed twice a year. Heavy names in EGX30 typically include Commercial International Bank, Eastern Tobacco, Fawry, Talaat Moustafa, and EFG Hermes, though the exact list changes with each review.

EGX70 tracks the 70 next-most-active small and mid-cap companies outside the EGX30 — in other words, companies ranked 31 through 100 by activity and size. This index gives investors exposure to the broader Egyptian market beyond the heavyweight blue chips. Historically, EGX70 has higher volatility than EGX30 and tends to outperform during strong bull runs because retail money flows more aggressively into smaller names during euphoria. In corrections, EGX70 typically falls harder and faster.

EGX100 combines the constituents of EGX30 and EGX70 into a single 100-stock index. Think of it as the Egyptian market as a whole. EGX100 is the benchmark most professional asset managers in Egypt use when they want a broad-market reference, because it captures roughly 95% of total market activity.

Two less commonly discussed indices are worth knowing. EGX33 Shariah is a Sharia-compliant variant that filters out companies with businesses or capital structures that do not meet Shariah principles — no interest-based banks, no alcohol, no conventional insurance. EGX30 Capped applies a stricter 10% cap per stock, which reduces concentration risk and is preferred by some ETF benchmarks.

Historical performance over the past decade shows an interesting pattern. In years when the Egyptian pound was relatively stable and foreign capital was flowing in, EGX30 tended to lead because foreign funds buy the biggest, most liquid names first. In years dominated by retail enthusiasm and local money (such as 2021), EGX70 significantly outperformed EGX30 — the small and mid caps ran much faster. In crisis years (the 2016 float, the 2022-2024 devaluation cycle), both indices fell, but EGX70 fell more steeply and took longer to recover.

Institutional investors — foreign funds, local pension funds, asset managers running mandates — overwhelmingly track EGX30 as their primary benchmark. Liquidity matters more than diversification for a fund that may need to deploy or redeem hundreds of millions of pounds, and the EGX30 names are the only ones with sufficient daily trading volume. Retail investors have more flexibility and often spread their portfolios into EGX70 names hoping for outsized returns.

How do you use an index as a benchmark? If your portfolio is entirely blue chip, compare it to EGX30. If you own a mix of large, mid, and small caps, compare it to EGX100. If you specialize in small and mid caps, compare it to EGX70. Picking the wrong benchmark flatters or punishes your performance unfairly. A portfolio that returned 40% in a year when EGX70 returned 60% actually underperformed its benchmark by 20 percentage points, even if the absolute return looks impressive in isolation.

A common mistake is to compare a long-only Egyptian equity portfolio to the Egyptian pound return of a foreign index (like the S&P 500 converted to EGP). This mixes currency movement with equity performance and makes it almost impossible to judge whether your stock picking was any good. Separate the two: measure your portfolio in EGP against an EGP index, and measure your currency exposure separately.

FoudaLens tracks all three main indices and publishes daily EGX30, EGX70, and EGX100 levels alongside their year-to-date performance. You can also see sector-level performance within each index to understand what is driving the overall move. For most retail investors, our recommendation is to track EGX30 for big-picture market direction and EGX100 as your performance benchmark, unless you have a specific small-cap thesis that justifies using EGX70. This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.