(Bloomberg) — Egypt’s pound weakened and its stock market plunged the most in five years as the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran stoked fears of a wider regional war.
The pound was trading at 50.74 per US dollar at Cairo’s banks by 12:45 p.m. on Sunday, down from about 49.8 last week.
The benchmark EGX30 index, meanwhile, tumbled as much as 7.7% on its first day of trading since Israel struck Iranian nuclear and military facilities. It later pared some of those losses.
Import-dependent Egypt, which is trying to turn around its economy after securing a $57 billion global bailout, is particularly vulnerable to the economic shockwaves stemming from the Middle East’s latest round of conflict.
Egypt’s sovereign dollar bonds, along with those of Israel and Jordan, posted some of the biggest losses in emerging markets Friday after Israel began the airstrikes. The Egyptian note due in 2059 lost 1.5 cents on the dollar, its biggest single-day loss since April. The declines came after recent rallies took average total returns on Egyptian bonds to 5.5% this year.
Cairo-based investment bank EFG Hermes said there were indications of about $500 million in portfolio outflows from the local debt market on Thursday, after the US ordered some of its diplomatic staff to leave the region.
The weekend’s escalation will likely cause further outflows and weakness for the pound in the coming days, Mohamed Abu Basha, the bank’s head of macro analysis, said in a note. It also increases the chances of Egypt’s central bank keeping interest rates on hold at its July 10 meeting, he said.
Israel shuttered its biggest natural gas field on Friday, stopping flows to Egypt and forcing Cairo in turn to cut supplies to some industries and switch to diesel at some power stations. Egyptian authorities also said Saturday they’d postpone the long-anticipated inauguration of its flagship antiquities museum that was set for July 3, until the fourth quarter.
The Egyptian pound has been closely watched by investors since authorities allowed it to plummet about 40% in March 2024 to tackle a chronic foreign-exchange shortage and secure an expanded International Monetary Fund program. Keeping a flexible exchange rate regime is one of the main targets of the Washington-based lender’s $8 billion loan pact.
The stock market’s drop was its most since March 2020, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Among the biggest decliners were EFG Holding, which was down about 12% by 11 a.m., and property developer the Talaat Moustafa Group, which fell 5.3%.
–With assistance from Tarek El-Tablawy, Srinivasan Sivabalan and Omar Tamo.
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