CAIRO, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Egypt's benchmark index tracked roughly sideways on Sunday despite some of its heaviest weights clocking heavy losses, as local retail investors sought numerous small cap bargains, traders said. Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) and Orascom Telecom (OT) -- the two biggest weights on the CASE 30 index -- both dipped more than 4 percent with global and Gulf sentiment pulling down big caps.
OCI ended 4.3 percent lower at 188 Egyptian pounds ($34.02), and OT shed 4.81 percent to 35.05 pounds, while overall the CASE 30 index lost 0.14 percent to 5,235.76 points.
"A lot of retail involvement is starting to appear, and they prefer the smaller stocks," said Karim Hosny from Pharos Securities. "They are more liquid with a smaller free float ... so there is higher volatility and they are able to make more money in less days."
The prominent Hermes index closed 0.1 percent higher at 473.59 points, while the broader CIBC-100 index -- which includes many more small firms -- ended 2.25 percent higher at 299.77 points.
Many small caps firms have suffered steep losses in recent months, and retail investors in particular were seeking bargains.
"They got really cheap," said Teymour el-Derini from Beltone Financial, noting that textiles, real estate and construction firms were the main beneficiaries of the buying impulse.
Traders said many stocks trading more than 10 percent higher by the close.
Nile Cotton Ginning rose 10.28 percent to 14.70 pounds, after gaining more than 13 percent on Thursday. Egyptian Iron and Steel ended 19.93 percent higher at 14.68 pounds. It had traded as high as 73 pounds earlier this year. ($1 = 5.5265 Egyptian pounds) (Writing by Alastair Sharp)