Today’s Trading Playbook
KEY THEMES
This week is filled mostly with macro data. Indeed, we have seen Egypt’s PMI reading Monday morning (an improvement vs. prior month), and yesterday we saw Egypt’s foreign reserves stage a comeback (another improvement vs. prior month)—albeit expected, thanks to inflows of USD9.77bn from the IMF and Eurobond issuance. Tomorrow, inflation numbers for June are due. We have seen the Egyptian pound (EGP) appreciate slightly this week by almost 1%, back to almost where it started the year after paring the 3% ytd gain it had made by late February. We note that “exchange rate flexibility” has been noted by the IMF as one of the essential elements to improve the economy’s resilience to shocks while maintaining competitiveness. With foreign inflows coming back to the Egyptian debt market, it will only be a matter of time until we see foreign equity inflows come back.
Now, on to the top news and analysis for the day.