KEY THEMES
Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of the Egyptian pound flotation which took place back on Thursday, 3 November 2016. It was the kick start of Egypt’s economic reform program which was key to Egypt’s maintaining its economic composure through ups and downs globally, including the latest coronavirus pandemic. As of yesterday, EGX 30 is up only 23% from its 2 November 2016 level but is down 43% off its intraday high during April 2018. Coinciding with the EGP flotation anniversary, we also had yesterday the highly-contested U.S. Presidential elections. In our Chart of the Day (please see below), we illustrate how the U.S. stock market, as measured by S&P 500, reacted to a Trump win. The 30 days before election day in 2016 and 2020 are somewhat rhyming with S&P 500 having fallen off the prior month’s peak. The question is: If Trump wins again, will S&P 500 jump through the end of year like it did back in 2016? Back home, we have the real estate exhibition Cityscape launch today which should be positive for real estate developers as they attract demand with new installment schemes, noting that this is the first real estate exhibition since COVID-19 outbreak early in the year.