CAIRO, Jan 8 Egyptian shares rose on Monday with Orascom Telecom (OT) briefly hitting a r

CAIRO, Jan 8 (Reuters) Egyptian shares rose on Monday with Orascom Telecom (OT) briefly hitting a record high of 500 Egyptian pounds ($87.65) driven by bullish investors trading at the start of the new year, traders said.

''The market went up sharply in the first half due to overexcitement from investors at the start of the year, but there was profit-taking in the second half,'' said Mohamed Kotb of Jazira Asset Management.

Traders said Orascom Telecom led the market after it invited shareholders to an extraordinary general meeting on Jan. 25 to approve a 5:1 stock split. OT chairman, Naguib Sawiris, also recently said the company had succeeded in reaching the 50 million subscribers mark by the end of 2006.

Shares in OT on Monday soared to 500 pounds early in the session in volatile trade before closing at 401.01 pounds, up just 0.2 percent as investors persisted in profit-taking in the second half of the session.

Angus Blair of Beltone Financial said the extended holiday period in Egypt with Islamic and Coptic holidays as well as the New Year had boosted appetite for trading among investors.

''Unusually for Egypt there has been a long holiday period, resulting in a pent-up demand to trade and the trading volumes reflect that.'' Apart from OT, other heavily-traded stocks that performed well included Egyptian for Tourism Resorts, which has steadily risen in previous sessions, was up one percent to close at 136.95 pounds.

Stock in EFG-Hermes, the largest broker in Egypt by market share in 2006, bucked market sentiment to fall one percent to 41.01 pounds.

The benchmark Hermes index rose 1.1 percent to 63,586.09 points and the CASE 30 index gained 1.2 percent to 7,240.14 points. The broader CIBC-100 index rose 0.1 percent to 294.13 points.

($1=5.7043 Egyptian pounds) REUTERS SBA BD2051