We begin this morning with a holiday advisory if, perchance, the coming respite has slipped off your radar:

We are just days away from the Easter / Sham El Neseem break — our first long weekend since January. Banks and the stock market are closed Sunday (16 April) and Monday (17 April). It would be somewhat unseemly to start the week the counting hours remaining (we suggest saving that for Wednesday morning).

We’re also off Tuesday, 25 April (for Sinai Liberation Day) and Monday, 1 May (for Labour Day).

Ramadan is due to start (depending on whether you believe Google’s search results, Google’s Calendar app or a February report from Ahram Online) some time 25-27 May.

The de rigueur Sunday Morning Expression of Optimism: “Ramzi Sidani, senior frontier markets fund manager at HSBC … is also optimistic about Egypt, which Sidani said is taking the right steps as part of its deal with the IMF. ‘Inflation has more or less peaked, and in the long run the currency should improve, although in the short term there will be pain as companies adjust to the new environment,’ he said.” (Brief mention in the Wall Street Journal’s This Week on The Frontiers column.)

Thank God we’re not… South Africa. Fitch became the second ratings agency to cut to junk the credit rating of our continental rival for investment, downgrading the country to BBB- from BB+ on Friday in reaction to President Jacob Zuma’s ouster of exceptionally competent finance minister Pravin Gordhan.