Econintersect: One of the “Berlin Walls” of the Middle East has fallen. Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year reign as head of Egypt has come to an end as the 82-year old dictator has “relieved himself” of his position as president and the Supreme Military Council has taken control of the state’s affairs. The world now awaits the follow-on action of military. Elections had been scheduled for September. Will that schedule be maintained, accelerated or delayed?Financial market reaction has been positive. The Egyptian ETF, EGPT, has jumped 8% on the NYSE. European stocks have risen on the news. In Frankfurt, the DAX XETRA is has rallied 1.4% from its lows, Paris is up 1.9% and London is +1.6%.
In New York, the Dow has been up as much as 0.8% from it’s lows earlier in the morning. The S&P 500 has been up as much as 1% and the Nasdaq Composite by as much as 0.9%
Oil has declined by as much as 1.3% and the U.S. dollar has strengthened by 0.3% against the Euro today and by a total of 1.3% over two days, but has weakened slightly since the Egyptian announcement.
Sources: Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance
