{"id":632460,"date":"2018-02-12T04:14:49","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T04:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2018\/02\/12\/what-were-tracking-on-12-february-2018\/"},"modified":"2018-02-12T04:14:49","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T04:14:49","slug":"what-were-tracking-on-12-february-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2018\/02\/12\/what-were-tracking-on-12-february-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"What we\u2019re tracking on 12 February 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> Market watchers will be timezone hopping today for signs that we\u2019ve found the bottom in the ongoing stock rout. <\/strong>Asian markets are mixed<\/a> this morning and oil has firmed up<\/a>, with Brent rising about 0.7% to USD 63.20 a barrel. A sweep across points east just before dispatch time shows Japanese, Indian, New Zealand and Australian shares largely down, and China, South Korea and Hong Kong up. With USD 5 tn wiped out from stock markets from New York to Hong Kong last week, traders are wondering \u201cWhen will it finally stop,\u201d Bloomberg tells us in an excellent scene-setter for the week.<\/a><\/p>\n

The front page of CNBC sums it all up rather nicely, if in less sophisticated terms: <\/strong>Dow futures point to a triple-digit open today<\/a> in the United States after shares pulled out of correction territory Friday. The IMF\u2019s Christine Lagarde is making all the right noises, saying what\u2019s going on is \u201ca welcome correction\u201d<\/a> (and, by implication, that those losing their minds right now are drama queens). And while a top analyst at Invesco warns that \u201cthe market\u2019s wild ride could last weeks<\/a> \u2014 with another jolt coming right behind it,\u201d the counterpoint is that the \u201cbull market looks safe for now, as fewer than half of all corrections deepen into full-blown bears<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Egyptian investors, meanwhile, held the collective breath yesterday<\/strong> waiting to see which way global markets would move today. The EGX30 was down 0.62% in very light trading (total market turnover was about 45% below the trailing 90-day average).<\/p>\n

And the hedgies have joined the Jim Cramers of the world in proclaiming that volatility is now the order of the game.<\/strong> Bob Prince, the co-chief investment officer at Bridgewater, the world\u2019s largest hedge fund, \u201chas warned that global markets are entering a new era of volatility as the world adjusts to higher interest rates after a decade of ultra-loose monetary policy,\u201d the Financial Times<\/a> writes.<\/p>\n

Hard currency continues to flow into Egypt: <\/strong>Remittances from expats increased 29.3% y-o-y in December 2017 to USD 2.6 bn, up from USD 2.0 bn in December 2016, the central bank announced in a statement on Sunday (pdf)<\/a>. Overall, remittances since the EGP float until December 2017 grew to USD 29.1 bn. That comes as tourist arrivals were up 43.9% y-o-y in December<\/strong>, according to a CAPMAS release picked up by Al Mal<\/a>. 33.8% of all arrivals had been from Western Europe, 25.6% from Eastern Europe, 20.4% from the Middle East, and 7.1% from Africa.<\/p>\n

Looking for a brief refresher on the economic and budget indicators in 1H2017-18?<\/strong> You can check out the Finance Ministry\u2019s mid-year 2017-18 report (pdf)<\/a>, which came out over the weekend. Highlights of the report, most of which we\u2019ve covered before<\/a>, include:<\/p>\n