The EGX30 fell 5.0% at the close of trading yesterday, after news of Abu Dhabi wealth fund ADQ’s planned USD 35 bn investment in Egypt for development rights to Ras El Hekma on the North Coast over the weekend.

It wasn’t just the EGX30 that had a rough time: The USD on the local parallel market has fallen nearly 17% since ADQ’s agreement with the government was announced on Friday and is now trading at around EGP 51. Safe-haven asset gold in the local market has also taken a hit, with 24 karat gold now exchanging hands for 12.7% less than what it was before the announcement. The EGP also strengthened in the market for twelve-month non-deliverable forwards, with traders putting the USD-EGP rate at the high 50s, down from a January peak of over 70 for a brief period.

But some on the index had record days: Investors piled in on real estate and construction stocks following the news, with Talaat Moustafa Group — who announced it will “collaborate” with Abu Dhabi wealth fund ADQ and the Emirati real estate developer Modon Properties on the project in an EGX disclosure (pdf) — seeing its share price jump 20% throughout the day. Even real estate developers and construction companies not yet connected to the colossal project saw their share price jump.

For many investors, today seemed like the day to collect on their investments: Even after the 5% drop, the country’s headline index is still up 11.8% YTD and up 67.4% for one-year returns as investors had been piling into equities as a hedge against devaluation — even pushing the index past the 30k mark last month for the first time ever, Mubasher Capital Vice Chairman Ehab Rashad told Enterprise. Now that the expectation is that the devaluation will be more modest than previously believed, they're collecting on their investments.

CIB shares are partially the reason: Shares in CIB has for some time been a prime target for many investors as a means of acquiring USD through arbitrage — that is, buying CIB shares in EGP from the EGX and then converting their shares into certificates of deposit in its LSE-listed GDRs, which they can then sell in foreign currency. As the EGP’s value rose against the USD on the parallel market, CIB’s share price fell 9.8% at yesterday’s close. Because the bank is the largest component of the EGX30, taking up over 27% of the index, the decline in CIB shares was one of the determining factors for the EGX30’s decline.

Investors will be more choosy with their stocks for the coming period, as they look to avoid shares that would be affected by the rise in the value of the EGP against the greenback, and ones that rely primarily on exports, Rashad told us.

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