Quick update on EGPT – The Egyptian market has been closed for the past month – Over this time market officials have set a half dozen or so reopen dates only to push them back each time – The latest is that we won’t reopen until the new prime minister is able to meet with market officials – The real concern is that the market is going to get hammered when it finally does reopen (and it will). This is opposite my original hypothesis that the market was trading at …

EGPT is an Egypt ETF – Egypt’s market is down another 6% today and 18% since Tunisia’s protests – This ETF is down 12% since Tunisia and should decline further today if Egypt’s market remains lower into the close – Trading is currently suspended in Egypt which is not a positive sign for the direction of the market – I think this move is overstated – Even if Mubarak falls (or – more likely – crushes the protests), I don’t see the Egyptian market remaining at such depressed levels – The situation …

The projected wave election struck as the GOP picked up six Senate seats and sixty House seats. Turnout spiked to 42% – far higher than the 37% in 2002 and 2006, and the 39% needed for Republicans to retake the Congress in 1994.
An equally significant story was the Republican’s ability to gain control of 19 state-legislatures. With Congressional redistricting set to begin, Republicans will have a significant advantage to retain or redraw favorable districts. In addition, California’s passage of Proposition 20 will improve competition and could assist in Republican pick-ups. …

Senate: GOP +8 seats (WA, NV, CO, IL, PA, WI, IN, AK)
House: GOP +60 seats
After being written off as a dead party following Obama’s historic 2008 victory, Republicans are poised to make significant gains in today’s election. An inability to bring down the unemployment rate and the overselling of the potential impact of the stimulus package has provided Republicans with plenty of campaign fodder. Further, the Administration’s tone-deaf focus on health care appears to have backfired and placed many Democrats that won election in 2006 and 2008 at-risk. Despite a …

Turkey is known to have crazy soccer fans so before I left Cairo I checked the schedule and saw that Besiktas had a home game. There are three major teams in Istanbul (Besiktas is one of them) and their opponent was a team from the Kurdish portion of Turkey. The Kurds language and political rights have been suppressed by the state, but they aren’t very popular in the country partly because of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (known as the PKK). The PKK is a separatist movement seeking unification with Kurds in Northern Iraq to form Kurdistan. The …