Short-term pain for long-term gain is Wall Street’s motto at the moment: Option trading shows that implied volatility has climbed, but the actual level of price swings has mellowed down, according to a Sundial Capital note seen by Bloomberg. That means that “in the short term, options traders are ‘smarter,’ while in the medium-term, investors have been,” the note read. Sundials’ note comes after the S&P 500’s worst week in almost three months. The firm looked at eight similar circumstances for the index historically and found that a rally always followed within two months of the S&P being within 1% of a record low while volatility was high, indicating a rally could be in the cards soon.

Pray for dispatch: Tech firm Intuit has agreed to purchase leading email marketing platform Mailchimp for around USD 12 bn in a cash and stock transaction, it announced in a statement on Monday.

EGX30

11,149

-0.3% (YTD: +2.8%)

USD (CBE)

Buy 15.66

Sell 15.76

USD at CIB

Buy 15.66

Sell 15.76

Interest rates CBE

8.25% deposit

9.25% lending

Tadawul

11,410

+0.3% (YTD: +31.3%)

ADX

7,823

+0.8% (YTD: +55.1%)

DFM

2,885

+0.2% (YTD: +15.8%)

S&P 500

4,480.70

+0.9% (YTD: +19.3%)

FTSE 100

7,016

-0.3% (YTD: +8.6%)

Brent crude

USD 75.46

+2.5%

Natural gas (Nymex)

USD 5.38

-1.5%

Gold

USD 1,796.60

+0.1%

BTC

USD 48,208

+3.2% (as of midnight)

THE CLOSING BELL-

The EGX30 fell 0.3% at yesterday’s close on turnover of EGP 1.6 bn (3.6% above the 90-day average). Foreign investors were net sellers. The index is up 2.8% YTD.

In the green: Cleopatra Hospitals (+5.9%), Ezz Steel (+2.9%) and EKH (+1.7%).

In the red: Pioneers Holding (-4%), Raya (-3.7%) and Ibnsina Pharma (-3.3%).

Asian markets are patchy in early trading this morning while US shares and most European markets look set to fall when they open later today.

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