EGX boards buy back 20 mn shares, betting the market got their price wrong

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WHAT WE’RE TRACKING TODAY

The government is raising export rebates by an average of 35% and picking up as much as half the freight bill to new markets

Good morning, lovely people, and welcome back from the weekend. If October felt rough, you weren’t imagining it: the EGP slid past 56, the EGX halted trading for the first time since 2021, and foreign money headed for the door. In today’s issue, we ask analysts why the boards of five companies spent the recovery week buying their own stock, and why the freefloat is the question to watch.

Goldman Sachs now puts the EGP more than 30% below its fair value after October’s slide past 56, and sees it at 50/USD a year out. It’s keeping its buy call and telling allocators how to hedge — we break down the numbers, the USD 10 bn foreign exit behind them, and the caveats below.

MEANWHILE- The government is putting more money behind exports. A revamped rebate program the Cabinet approved last Thursday lifts support by an average of 35% from this month’s shipments and covers half of sea and land costs to Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and beyond, plus a quarter of air freight to Europe. We walk through who’s covered, who’s excluded, and why the government is leaning on exports now.

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In an upcoming episode of Making It, Patrick and the team will answer some of these questions, along with anything else you’re curious about.

Record your question as a voice memo (30-45 seconds), tell us your name at the top, and send it to [email protected] by Thursday, 12 November. We’ll also take written questions, but since we’re an audio show, we’d love to play yours in your own voice.

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Freight rebate special

Exporters will get an average of 35% more in government support under a revamped export rebate program the Cabinet approved on Thursday, 5 November, according to a statement. The new rates already apply to shipments from the start of this month. The increase varies by sector and excludes freezone exporters. The program covers textiles, agricultural and food products, engineering, medical goods and pharma, furniture, leather, chemicals and packaging, building materials, and handicrafts, Investment and Foreign Trade Minister Mohamed Farid says in the statement.

Freight gets its own support line, with the program covering 50% of sea and land freight costs to Africa, Latin America, Australia, Southeast Asia, and Russia, the statement says. It will also cover 25% of air freight to Europe and 50% to the UK, both for agricultural exports. On top of that, it will pay 25% of domestic transport costs, 25% of cargo ins. policies, and 25% of the invoice for shipments on express vessels.

The government is also keeping the extra incentives for target markets, and has added the US and 11 Southeast Asian countries to the list. Exporters will also have to submit complete files before they’re accepted, a rule change meant to stop incomplete files piling up and holding up payouts.

As for timing, the program rolls out in two phases. The first runs to the end of 2026 and aims to lift exports quickly and bring new companies in. The second, starting from July 2027, will tackle the longer-term challenges exporters face.

IN CONTEXT- The FY 2026/27 budget earmarks EGP 48 bn for export support, up from the EGP 28 bn actually disbursed last fiscal year. Meanwhile, the Finance Ministry is still working through arrears on shipments made before July 2024.

Why it matters: Exports are among the steadiest FX sources that Egypt can grow through its own production — foreign investors net sold some USD 2.07 bn of local debt in October, pushing the greenback to a record EGP 56.35. The EGP has since clawed back some of that ground, with the USD closing on Thursday at EGP 53.97, some 4.2% below its peak by our math, as the Central Bank of Egypt’s rate hike drew foreign buyers back to local debt.

Non-oil exports grew 7.8% to USD 37.3 bn in FY 2025/26, well behind a 16.9% jump in non-oil imports, which pushed the trade deficit up 27.1% to USD 64.8 bn. The balance of payments still ended the year in surplus, but only with help from remittances and a one-off USD 3.5 bn Alam El Roum tranche. A wider export base would reduce that reliance on hot money and one-off transactions, leaving the economy better placed to absorb external shocks.

Tightening the belt

The Cabinet approved a draft decree on Thursday ordering three months of public spending rationalization across all state budget entities and public economic authorities, extendable if needed, according to a statement. Events in the Middle East require the state to reorder its spending priorities to contain the crisis’s fallout, the Cabinet says.

What gets cut: Government entities must cut electricity and lighting use by 20% compared with the same period in FY 2025/26, and fuel for government vehicles by at least 30%. At least 20% of the remaining goods-and-services allocations are frozen, while fuel-intensive national projects will be postponed or slowed for at least three months. Those projects also need plans to cut their own electricity use by 20% and fuel by 30%.

Projects newly added to this year’s budget are deferred, with no new contracts on them until 30 June 2027 unless they were already signed. No new projects can start this fiscal year, with available capex going to works that are close to completion. Government passenger car purchases are also off until the end of June 2027.

Some spending is off the table entirely: Advertising, publicity, parties, receptions, public relations, cultural activities abroad, sports equipment, and prizes and medals have been axed. So are travel allowances abroad and exhibitions and conferences at home or abroad. Taking part in conferences needs prior approval, while overseas travel is limited to cases of extreme necessity with the prime minister’s sign-off, unless the host covers the bill.

A locked door on state FX: Any spending with a foreign currency component now needs the Finance Ministry’s approval, coordinated with the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE). Entities are also barred from contracting for any work that could later require FX or external borrowing.

What’s spared: The rules don’t apply to the Health Ministry and other healthcare providers, national security, loan interest and repayments, social solidarity pensions, Takaful and Karama, or petroleum and gas supply. Food subsidies are also exempt, though they come with a commitment to import less wheat as local supply rises. On the investment side, presidential and prime ministerial directives, Haya Karima, health, pre-university education, the interior, drinking water, and wastewater are all exempt. So are projects tied to national, water, food, and cyber and energy security.

We’ve been here before: This is the state’s second spending squeeze this year. The prime minister issued Decree 932 of 2026 in late March, weeks after the war on Iran began and Hormuz closed, setting rationalization rules through the end of FY 2025/26. The playbook goes back to January 2023, when Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly ordered state bodies to postpone projects requiring FX. That order also required Finance Ministry sign-off, coordinated with the CBE, for any FX spending, as Egypt worked through the FX crunch that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Bypassing the USD

Egypt and India have carried out the first successful pilot transfer settling trade in their own currencies, Indian Ambassador to Egypt Suresh K. Reddy told Al Arabiya. The pilot is designed to test technical payment rails and lower FX conversion friction ahead of scaling corporate trade settlements in EGP and INR.

REMEMBER- Egypt had set a target of increasing annual bilateral trade with India from USD 6.5 bn in FY 2025/26 to USD 12 bn within five years. The trade runway for India-Egypt is sectoral and monetizable. Egypt’s Ambassador to India Kamel Galal had pointed out key avenues, including potentially adding USD 800 mn in trade volumes from the joint manufacturing of fashion goods in the Suez Canal Economic Zone, as well as rising solar panel imports from India, and targeting the Indian IT sector to contribute to Egypt’s digital transformation.

Not the first swap trial: Egypt and the UAE also renewed their AED-EGP currency swap agreement for another five years last month, keeping an AED 5 bn facility in place to support bilateral trade and financial settlements. The facility is intended to support greater use of the two countries’ currencies in cross-border transactions. As the country continues to look for ways to reduce the role of the USD as an intermediary in its trade corridors, Egypt is also planning to link InstaPay to the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System. The link-up would let Egyptian traders settle with African counterparts in local currencies rather than rely on USD, cutting the cost and time it currently takes to route a payment through a correspondent bank.

Data point

USD 57.5 bn — that’s where the country’s net international reserves stood at the end of October 2026, inching up by USD 151.6 mn from USD 57.35 bn in September, according to provisional data from the Central Bank of Egypt.

PSA-

WEATHER- Cairo is settling into a milder autumn groove today, with a high of 24°C, and a low of 16°C, according to our favorite weather app.

It’s much the same in Alexandria too, with a high of 23°C and a low of 17°C.

The big story abroad

Tensions are flaring even before the new US Congress convenes. US President Donald Trump has instructed the Justice Department to open an investigation into the Democrats, who have promised to scrutinize his administration and Republican donors when the Democratic Party assumes control of the House and Senate in January. Fresh off a sweeping midterm victory, Democrats have vowed to examine evidence related to how the Trump administration handled the review of the Epstein files that lawmakers had ordered be made public. The Democrats have also pledged to look into Trump’s tariffs, immigration policies, and stock trading.

Nvidia CEO suspected of involvement with Chinese spy: Washington believes Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was romantically involved with alleged Chinese spy Alice Huang, an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based customer under US scrutiny for allegedly smuggling Nvidia chips into China, the Financial Times reports, citing people familiar with the matter. US intelligence believes China’s Ministry of State Security recruited Alice. A memo on the relationship reached senior officials shortly before Trump’s Beijing summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Nvidia declined to comment. The company had launched an internal probe earlier into the smuggling claims and said it found no evidence of wrongdoing.

Back to the table: The US, Russia, and Ukraine will meet in Abu Dhabi this week for their first talks on ending the war since February. Moscow will send senior diplomats as well as military intelligence and army officials. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov will also join for the first time. Russia launched missile and drone strikes on energy facilities around Kyiv over the weekend, which is putting pressure on the capital’s electricity and heating as temperatures drop near freezing.

Why some EGX companies spent the recovery week buying their own stock

Five EGX-listed companies took some 20.1 mn of their own shares off the market last week, buying through the rebound that followed a selloff severe enough to trigger the bourse’s first market-wide trading halt since October 2021. The EGX30 closed in October down 4.4%, with the EGX70 shedding some 9.9% over the same period. Three firms approved their programs during that selloff: Ibnsina Pharma’s board on 25 October, Edita’s on 26 October, and Taaleem’s on 29 October. Pioneers Properties for Urban Development (PRE Group) and Bonyan for Development and Trade already had programs running into the fall.

Valuations were a big part of the appeal, Al Ahly Pharos Head of Research Hany Genena tells EnterpriseAM, adding that his desk fielded inquiries from companies weighing whether the selloff was a good moment to launch a buyback. EGX30 heavyweights had been caught in the crossfire of two bouts of selling pressure, one driven by external factors and the other by the EGX70 rout, leaving many trading at fair valuations or well below them, with few stocks in between. Real estate stocks were weighed down by concerns over a sector slowdown and higher interest rates, while CIB came under pressure from broader foreign outflows from Egypt. “Some of the stocks were extremely undervalued,” Genena says.

That’s why the buying continued as the market started to recover. By Wednesday, the EGX30 had gained for a second consecutive session, rising 2.83% to close at roughly 50.7k points, with foreign institutions being net buyers of EGP 338.7 mn. Here’s where each program stands:

Bonyan for Development and Trade bought 5.2 mn shares on Thursday, the final session of its program and its largest purchase by some margin, after taking 2.62 mn on Tuesday and 2 mn on Wednesday (here, pdf, here, pdf, and here, pdf). That brings it to 32 mn shares since notifying the exchange, under a 6 October resolution authorizing up to 4% of issued capital, with its execution window closing on Thursday.
PRE Group has taken just over 23 mn shares since its 14 October notification, under a board resolution dating to 22 August, including 420k in Thursday’s session (pdf).
Ibnsina Pharma has bought 5.33 mn shares across five sessions since 29 October, including 630k on Thursday (pdf), though its filings disclose each session without a running total or program size.
Edita has bought around 3.42 mn of the 30 mn shares it authorized on 26 October, under a one-month program equivalent to roughly 1.4% of its issued capital. Its largest purchase came on Monday, at 1.68 mn shares (pdf).
Taaleem bought some 370.5k shares on Wednesday (pdf), just two days into a program that runs through 2 December. It has approval to repurchase just over 22 mn shares, or 3% of its capital, using its own funds and executing through Commercial International Brokerage (CIBC), to support and stabilize its share price (pdf). Its board approved the program unanimously after setting aside the votes of shareholder Palm Hills Development’s representatives, with no participation from major shareholders or insiders. Taaleem held no treasury shares before the program, and its notification commits to staying inside both the 3% and the 10% statutory ceiling.

Disagreeing with the screen

A buyback is what a board reaches for when it thinks the market has its price wrong. “The company’s internal valuation or perspective sees a much more valuable company than what the market is valuing it at,” Menthum co-founder and CEO Himanshu Shrimali tells EnterpriseAM. A buyback also spreads earnings over fewer shares, lifting earnings per share for those who hold on. And when several boards reach that conclusion in the same two weeks, Shrimali sees a signal for the whole market. “It’s a good signal for the market that the companies have bigger conviction in their valuation than what the market is seeing it as,” he says.

SOUND SMART- Buybacks are also the cheaper way to hand money back: dividends carry a 10% withholding tax, while selling into a buyback attracts only stamp duty, Genena told us in January. Unlike a higher dividend, they also set no expectation of a repeat payout the following year.

Conviction also counts for more in a market priced by sentiment. “Share buybacks usually are a signal of confidence from the people who know these companies best, and that matters in a sentiment-driven market,” Managing Director of Okaz Asset Management Randa Hamed tells us. She adds a condition: a buyback makes sense only when a stock is undervalued and the balance sheet can carry it.

And even when it does, the lift is temporary. “A buyback supports a price only while it runs,” Hamed says. “The real question is whether those shares are canceled or come back to the market within the regulatory window.” Canceled shares shrink the share count for good, while shares parked in the treasury are supply waiting to return.

BACKGROUND- Egyptian law caps treasury holdings at 10% of a company’s shares and requires them to be re-issued or canceled within a year.

A good number of those shares will likely make their way back onto the market, Genena expects, since companies that bought at distressed valuations could book gains by selling their treasury shares once prices recover. And with many in the market expecting 1H 2027 to be considerably stronger than 2H 2026, companies have some room to wait for a better exit before the one-year deadline.

The freefloat problem

Selling those shares back would also restore some of the float that buybacks take out of trading. Egyptian freefloats are already slim by international standards, a fraction of what a large US-listed company leaves in the market, Shrimali notes. Taking more out of circulation makes the remainder easier to move, he adds. “If the freefloat was already small, let’s say only 10 or 15%, and if they buy back, then the freefloat will become even smaller.” His worry is market depth, since a smaller float is more volatile, which is the opposite of what a company seeking a steadier share price wants.

For some companies, however, a thinner float is the point, Genena says, pointing to the cement sector. Misr Beni Suef Cement has bought back shares before and then reduced its capital, a move that also limits how much stock other major shareholders can accumulate toward a board seat. That matters in a fiercely competitive sector where companies are increasingly reluctant to give rivals visibility into their profits and margins. “It’s becoming more and more closed, more and more heading towards private than public,” Genena says.

What’s next: The past two weeks suggest the market may have found a floor, according to Genena, though he sees another round of buybacks coming if stocks face renewed selling pressure.

Goldman Sachs calls EGP undervalued by 30%, sees it at 50 per USD

Goldman Sachs thinks the EGP is trading more than 30% below fair value after October’s currency slide, according to a research note picked up by Asharq Bloomberg, making it one of the most undervalued emerging market currencies.

The bank now sees the USD at EGP 53 in three months, 52 in six, and 50 in 12, up from the 49, 48, and 46 it forecast in June, when it put fair value at EGP 43 and called the EGP 13-15% undervalued. Last month’s slide, which took the greenback past a record EGP 56 on 26 October, widened the gap while fair value held relatively steady, Goldman says. The EGP has since recovered to about 53.9, per the central bank’s average market rate on Thursday, 5 November.

That slide came as foreigners sold local debt. Offshore holdings of Egyptian local-currency debt fell to around USD 20 bn from some USD 30 bn at end-September, Goldman estimates, with rolling monthly net sales heavy enough to add to the pressure on the EGP. That’s far more than the EGP 116.2 bn (c. USD 2.07 bn) foreigners net sold on the EGX across 4-22 October, since Goldman’s estimate likely also captures T-bills held off the exchange and maturities that weren’t rolled over. Foreign positioning is still large, so more money could leave, Goldman warns. It also sees a silver lining: with lighter holdings, current positioning reflects the EGP’s structural value more clearly.

SOUND SMART- Goldman measures fair value with the real effective exchange rate, which compares the EGP against a basket of trading partners’ currencies after adjusting for differences in inflation. A currency trading below that level is undervalued: it’s cheaper in the market than the underlying economy suggests it should be.

Goldman is sticking with its buy call on the EGP, citing both expected appreciation and the yield from holding local assets. If regional tensions ease, the EGP could rally strongly, the bank says. If tensions persist without a major escalation, investors still collect the high interest rates. Those rates rose after the CBE’s surprise 100 bps hike on 29 October, which left the overnight deposit rate at 20%, some 6.1 percentage points above September’s 13.9% urban inflation.

Our take

Egypt has made this round trip before. Some USD 15 bn in hot money left during the 2018 emerging-market crisis and close to USD 20 bn exited at the outbreak of Covid in 2020, then-Finance Minister Mohamed Maait told the American Chamber of Commerce in June 2022. Another estimated USD 20 bn left after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that year. And earlier this year, USD 6.7 bn exited within three weeks of the war on Iran breaking out, before money started flowing back in mid-March.

Each time, foreign investors came back once yields and the exchange rate made the trade attractive again. The math is simple: after a shock, investors can buy local debt with a cheaper EGP at higher interest rates, pocketing the yield plus a currency gain as the EGP strengthens before they convert back. “The lesson we have learned [is that] you cannot depend on this type of investment. It is coming just to get high yields, and once there is a shock it leaves the country,” Maait warned at the time.

Learning is a mindset — a lifelong journey, not a destination

Ask what prepares someone for a career in management, and the answer often begins with a degree earned years ago. We still treat education as an early investment expected to last an entire career. But the job usually changes long before the title does. AI, regional expansion, and teams that expect more than top-down instruction have changed what management demands. A degree gets you through the door, yet it cannot carry you through a 30-year career.

Business schools helped shape that discourse, but things are changing now. For decades, degree programs sat at the center of the traditional business-school model, while executive education developed alongside them as a separate track. A better model treats degrees and executive education as one continuum: providing people with a strong foundation, then giving them reasons to return as their jobs evolve. That is the model we are building at our school.

Employers can perpetuate the same divide. In Egypt, as elsewhere in the region, management development is still too often treated as a perk, and one of the first lines cut when budgets tighten, rather than a continuing investment in how the organization performs. Management development should be treated like maintenance on a company’s most expensive machinery: Skip it, and the cost shows up later, usually at the worst moment.

Executive Education at AUC Onsi Sawiris School of Business turns 60 this year, giving us a long view of what continuous learning looks like in practice. More than 11k alumni have passed through our programs, now standing at 45 and growing, over the past five years, with an average of 270 companies annually served by our offerings. This year our open-enrollment programs climbed to no. 69 in the Financial Times Executive Education Rankings, making us the only ranked institution from the Middle East and North Africa to make the list.

Preparing someone for their first big job is only the starting point. The harder test is whether a business school stays relevant through every job after that- and whether employers keep investing in managers after they hire them. Egypt needs managers who keep learning as the job keeps changing. When the job never stops changing, the people doing it cannot stand still.

Sherif Kamel, dean, AUC Onsi Sawiris School of Business

On Making It, Sherif Kamel and Patrick discuss what AI means for education in Egypt, from the classroom to national policy. Listen to the full episode here.

Oil Ministry taps Baker Hughes’ Amro Elsharkawi to chair the Mineral Resources and Mining Industries Authority

Oil Minister Karim Badawi appointed Amro Ismail Elsharkawi (LinkedIn) chairman of the Mineral Resources and Mining Industries Authority (MRMIA), the ministry said in a statement. Elsharkawi takes over from Yasser Ramadan (LinkedIn), who moves to head the ministry’s Central Administration for Geological Research and Information. The same decision names Ahmed Saad Fattouh (LinkedIn) vice chairman for mining industries and Ehab Anwar Hassan (LinkedIn) vice chairman for mineral resources.

Elsharkawi joins from oilfield services giant Baker Hughes, where he is regional manager for Egypt, after managing regional accounts for Saudi Aramco. Badawi tasked him with boosting investment, adding local value, and increasing the sector’s contribution to the national economy.

ALSO- The Sovereign Fund of Egypt’s (SFE) board appointed Kassem Hassan Kassem (LinkedIn) to head both its industrial investment and infrastructure sub-funds, according to an Investment Ministry statement. Kassem brings more than 25 years of multinational manufacturing and export experience, most recently more than five years as CEO and board member of the French home-appliance maker Groupe SEB. He earlier held senior posts at Procter & Gamble, Mars, and Samsung. He has run the industrial sub-fund since May, so the board’s decision adds the infrastructure vehicle to his remit.

IN CONTEXT- The SFE set up the industrial sub-fund in September with EGP 10 bn in authorized capital and EGP 1 bn issued, of which EGP 500 mn paid in, to back export-facing manufacturers and deepen local content, injecting seed capital into asset managers to pull private money or to invest in companies directly.

The US commits USD 125 mn to Egypt under a new aid template that ties development money to market access for American companies

The Foreign Ministry and the US Embassy in Cairo have inked the first-ever bilateral Strategic Objective Agreement for Advancing Mutual Prosperity, with the US committing USD 125 mn in funding to expand private-sector growth and market access for American companies, according to a US Embassy statement last Wednesday. The funding will target joint projects across food security, agriculture, education, health, water security, innovation, and workforce development.

SOUND SMART- A strategic objective agreement is the paper the US government uses to program civilian aid to another country: one bilateral grant that fixes a single shared objective, a results framework, and a spending ceiling, with the money released in increments tied to milestones and to Congress keeping it available. Egypt has taken US aid for decades, but through agency programs. That matters less for the USD 125 mn than for the template it sets: development money tied to private-sector growth and market access for American companies, not to the broad programs Washington used to fund.

REMEMBER- US President Donald Trump put all US foreign development assistance under a 90-day review on 20 January, leaving Egypt’s roughly USD 1.3 bn in annual military aid untouched. By mid-March, USAID had terminated 44 awards in Egypt worth about USD 950 mn; the agency ran nine main programs here, covering macroeconomics, health, education, environment, agriculture, food, social protection, and female empowerment. USAID stopped operating independently on 1 July 2025, with the State Department absorbing its remaining work.

Back on the line

The Distressed Factories Restructuring Fund expects to close its first acquisitions before the end of the year, taking over several plants as it shifts from launch into deployment, a senior government official tells us. The fund is studying 12 investment opportunities, offering financing to restart stalled factories in return for equity stakes, the official says.

Priority goes to the plants closest to restart: factories that have fallen behind on loan repayments top the list of cases the fund is examining, while the ones it backs first will be those it can bring back to operation soonest, the official says. Plants that are less ready operationally and financially (including textile and chemical factories) come after them. Around 100 factories have registered on the Industry Ministry’s electronic platform for stalled factories since it launched last month.

A second track is running in parallel, with the government in talks with investors to take over 30 of the 51 stalled factories it is vetting for fresh investment, Industry Minister Khaled Hashem told parliament’s Industry Committee last week, part of an effort to bring in new partners and restart the plants. It comes inside a wider plan to resolve the problem that about 6k factories have stalled over two years.

IN CONTEXT- The Industry Ministry and the Central Bank of Egypt launched the Distressed Factories Restructuring Fund in early October with EGP 1 bn in capital. It takes equity stakes in stalled plants with workable operations and restructures them. CI Capital manages it, with several banks and the Industrial Development Authority as partners.

Beyond call centers

US-based cybersecurity and digital identity firm RSA opened a new USD 5 mn Center of Excellence in New Cairo, raising its total investments in Egypt to USD 65 mn since 2020, according to a statement. The facility currently houses 300 engineers and specialists delivering high-value tech services, spanning AI, cloud computing, UX design, and data science, in six languages to serve RSA’s global clientele. The firm plans to expand its local headcount to 400 by 2029, building on an MoU inked with ITIDA during the Global Offshoring Summit in November 2025.

REMEMBER- The expansion fits the ICT Ministry’s push to move outsourcing toward higher-value work, building on the sector’s USD 5.2 bn of revenues generated in FY2025/26. ITIDA’s 2030 strategy, which is still being drawn up, aims to shift Egypt from call centers toward AI, data analytics, engineering R&D, and chip design. Alongside India, the New Cairo hub now serves as one of RSA’s centers of excellence, with local teams contributing to RSA’s global identity security portfolio.

Mapping the sands

Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) inked an agreement with Saudi seismic firm Ardiseis for a 2D seismic survey covering up to 110k sq km of the Western Desert, according to a statement. The project spans roughly 11% of the country’s total land area across Matrouh and New Valley governorates, in frontier tracts near the Libyan border that have seen no petroleum activity, aiming to de-risk future upstream bidding rounds and draw international exploration capital.

IN CONTEXT- The ministry named Ardiseis the winner after a global tender, announcing the award on 12 August. The work runs alongside a 100k sq km survey that state holding company Ganope is running south of the Western Desert, and a separate offshore program whose first phase covers 18k sq km in the eastern Mediterranean.

Waves of recovery

Suez Canal monthly revenues recorded USD 724 mn in October, jumping 94% y-o-y, the highest monthly revenue since the Red Sea crisis began, according to a statement from the Suez Canal Authority (SCA). Vessel transits climbed 32% y-o-y to 1.5k, up from 1.1k the previous year, with a total net tonnage of 88 mn tons.

Major carriers return to the canal: SCA Chairman Osama Rabie said momentum is set to hold as global container and bulk liners gradually resume transit routes through the waterway, winding down the detour around the Cape of Good Hope. The canal’s revenue stood at USD 4.8 bn in FY 2025/26, up 23% y-o-y but still well below the USD 10.2 bn in 2023. Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd moved a joint Asia-Europe service back to the canal in July, with the SCA targeting about USD 8 bn in revenue by 2H 2027.

The Nasdaq has its worst day since Liberation Day as the Democrats’ midterm sweep puts the AI buildout in doubt

The AI trade took its biggest hit in 18 months on Thursday, 5 November. The Nasdaq Composite fell 5.5%, its deepest one-day drop since “Liberation Day” in April 2025, on fears that the Democrats’ midterm sweep will slow the US data center buildout, Reuters reports. The index fell into correction territory, down nearly 12% from its 6 October record. The Nasdaq 100 fell 6.4%, wiping out USD 2.5 tn in market value.

Friday was the partial recovery, not the turn. The Nasdaq rose 1.09% to 24.58k as traders bought the dip in chips: Nvidia gained nearly 3%, moving back into positive territory for the year, and Micron rose 5% after falling 17% on Thursday, CNBC reports. The S&P 500 added 0.31% to close at 7.38k, while the Dow slipped 0.46% to 51.29k on a strong October jobs report. The week still closed red for the index.

Chipmakers and data center builders fell hardest: The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 12% to a six-month low. Nvidia fell 9% and AMD 17%. Neocloud firms CoreWeave and Nebius, which rent out AI computing capacity, fell 10% and 15%. CoreWeave’s five-year credit default swap spreads, a measure of how likely investors think a default is, widened to a record. UBS estimates that c. 30% of the data center capacity expected to come online in the US in 2028 could be at risk from construction pauses, as local opposition over power and water use grows.

The Gulf is heavily exposed: Gulf sovereign funds hold stakes at every layer of AI, from the frontier labs to the data centers. Global SWF estimates Mubadala’s identifiable AI exposure at USD 24.3 bn, or 6.3% of its assets, and PIF’s at USD 12 bn, or 1.3%, the firm’s head of research Daniel Brett tells EnterpriseAM. MGX holds stakes in OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, and QIA has backed three straight Anthropic funding rounds. The funds’ long investment horizons let them ride out volatility, Brett says. The bigger risks are project delays and tighter chip access: from January, Democratic-led congressional committees can investigate the agreements behind the Gulf’s chip access, as we reported last week.

Oil and Gulf stocks reacted differently to the election: Brent fell 8.7% to USD 94.62 on Wednesday and rebounded to nearly USD 98 on Thursday, on expectations that the result brings the US-Iran war closer to an end. Gulf bourses rose on Wednesday for the same reason, led by Qatar’s 1.8% gain. AI-linked names fell, though: Presight AI closed down 3.1%.

Two other sectors that benefited from Republican control and are in for a possible reckoning:

Private credit: Tighter oversight is likely now that direct lending has reached almost USD 2 tn, and proposals to ease capital buffer requirements will face more scrutiny, Bloomberg reports.
Crypto: President Donald Trump’s World Liberty Financial tokens fell 6% and his memecoin c. 19% as conflict-of-interest investigations become more likely, Bloomberg reports.

What we’re looking out for: The rout could also affect the timing of Anthropic’s IPO, which was expected this month. Investors say they might need a more attractive valuation, with the recently discussed USD 1.5 tn near the high end of expectations.

EGX30	51,153	+1.0% (YTD: +22.3%)
USD (CBE)	Buy 53.87	Sell 54.01
USD (CIB)	Buy 53.80	Sell 53.90
Interest rates (CBE)	20.00% deposit	21.00% lending
Tadawul	10,095	+0.6% (YTD: -3.8%)
ADX	9,393	-1.3% (YTD: -6.0%)
DFM	6,026	-0.3% (YTD: -0.4%)
S&P 500	7,377	+0.3% (YTD: +7.8%)
FTSE 100	10,674	-1.0% (YTD: +7.5%)
Euro Stoxx 50	6,170	-1.0% (YTD: +6.5%)
Brent crude	USD 98.32	0.0%
Natural gas (Nymex)	USD 3.00	+1.7%
Gold	USD 4,075	-0.9%
BTC	USD 75,808	-0.1% (YTD: -13.4%)
S&P Egypt Sovereign Bond Index	1,146	+0.1% (YTD: +15.4%)
S&P MENA Bond & Sukuk	149.69	-0.1% (YTD: -1.5%)
VIX (Volatility Index)	25.64	-9.0% (YTD: +71.5%)

THE CLOSING BELL-

The EGX30 rose 1.0% at Thursday’s close on turnover of EGP 10.2 bn (7.8% below the 90-day average). International investors were the sole net buyers. The index is up 22.3% YTD.

In the green: Palm Hills Developments (+5.7%), Heliopolis Housing (+5.0%), and Raya Holding (+2.8%).

In the red: Edita (-3.0%), Qalaa Holdings (-1.8%), and ADIB (-1.0%).

CALENDAR

NOVEMBER

6-8 November (Friday-Sunday): Global Entrepreneurship Festival, JW Marriott Hotel, New Cairo.

7-10 November (Sunday-Wednesday): Cairo ICT Forum, Egypt International Exhibition Center, New Cairo.

10 November (Tuesday): Cityscape Egypt Forum, Cairo.

14 November (Saturday): Rolling mills’ Administrative Court challenge.

16-17 November (Monday-Tuesday): World Economic Forum’s (WEF) first dedicated business meeting in Egypt + MENA, New Capital.

DECEMBER

7-10 December (Monday-Thursday): Food Africa, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo.

11-12 December (Friday-Saturday): ISER International Conference, Cairo.

17 December (Thursday): Monetary Policy Committee’s eighth meeting of 2026.

17-20 December (Thursday-Sunday): MacTech Egypt, Egypt International Exhibition Center, Cairo.

EVENTS WITH NO SET DATE

2H 2026: Operations at Deli Glass Co’s new USD 70 mn glassware factory kick off.

2026: The Egyptian-American Economic Forum.

2027

20 January-7 February: Egypt to host the African Games.

1-3 February (Monday-Wednesday): Agri Expo, Cairo International Convention Center.

April 2027: Tenth of Ramadan dry port and logistics hub to begin operations.

29 September - 2 October (Wednesday-Saturday): Cityscape Egypt Exhibition, Cairo.

EVENTS WITH NO SET DATE

2027: Egypt to host EBRD’s annual meetings.

2027: Egypt-EU Summit 2027.

End of 2027: Trial operations at the Dabaa nuclear power plant expected to take place.

September 2028: First unit of the Dabaa nuclear power plant begins operations.

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