We have plenty of (largely unexpected) good news this morning on the legislative / regulatory front:

The act deregulating the natural gas industry has won presidential approval. The act, published yesterday in the Official Gazette, opens clear roles for the private sector and will see the state transform from the monopoly manager of the distribution network into a regulator. (Think: NTRA for the gas industry, if you will.) Executive regulations for the act should be out in September, opening the door to the private import and trading of natural gas. We have the full rundown on the story in today’s Speed Round, below.

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi also reminded us yesterday that we’re about eight months away from a presidential election, signing into law the National Elections Commission Act.

The cabinet economic group signed off on the executive regulations to the Investment Act yesterday, according to a statement from the Investment Ministry. Lawyerly types should be adding their final touches to the draft today before it goes to the cabinet as a whole, which could happen as early as tomorrow. Once approved by the cabinet, the regulations will still pass through the Council of State before they are signed into law and published in the Official Gazette. Al Mal claims this is the latest version of the regs (pdf).

Also on cabinet’s docket for Wednesday: A review of the proposed Leasing and Factoring Act, Investment Minister Sahar Nasr said, according to Al Shorouk. EFSA had sent it to cabinet for review in April; a what purported to be a draft of the bill leaked in January.

The Investment Ministry’s investment map should also be moving forward to the House Economics Committee this week.

Wait, it’s been how long? The Financial Times is running a series of stories — told largely in charts — on the ten-year anniversary of the global financial crisis, which it notes “reshaped economies, financial markets, politics — even our culture. And it is still unfinished business.” The landing page for the series is here.

Four data points that could represent trends on which to keep an eye:

1. Traders expect the greenback to continue to keep weakening, “fuelling rallies in everything from US stocks to commodities,” the Wall Street Journal reports this morning in a front-page (digital edition) piece. Bloomberg agrees, noting investors taking a position based on expectations of strong global growth and a soft USD.

2. Standard Chartered is the latest firm to warn that Dubai’s position as a global financial hub could be dented as a result of the Qatar flap. Said CEO Bill Winters, in remarks his team are surely paying for this morning: “There is a lot of benefit we get from having a Dubai hub, we are looking to see what the effect of this will be. There is a risk of turning away from the UAE.” (Reuters)

3. Wall Street’s cull of analysts is good news for buysiders able to unearth their own prospects. “‘What we're looking for is some kind of edge, and if there are fewer analysts covering a stock there's a greater chance that it will be mispriced,’ he said. … Other fund managers are increasingly turning to small-cap companies with no sell-side coverage, hoping an industry-wide pullback in analyst research will allow them to buy into more ‘unknown’ companies before they get on other investors’ radar.” (Reuters)

4. Voice input and video will replace typing for “the next bn” consumers to come onto the internet. “They are a swath of the world’s less-educated, online for the first time thanks to low-end smartphones, cheap data plans and intuitive apps that let them navigate despite poor literacy. Incumbent tech companies are finding they must rethink their products for these newcomers and face local competitors that have been quicker to figure them out.” (Wall Street Journal)

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