It’s the last day of balloting in the constitutional referendum. Voters in Egypt have until this evening to vote on a package of constitutional amendments. Polls closed yesterday for Egyptians living abroad. You can read the statement by the National Elections Authority here. The vote continues to dominate foreign media coverage of Egypt; we have more in this morning’s Egypt in the News section, below.

It’s also another very slow news morning for business and finance with media attention distracted by the referendum, a terror attack in Sri Lanka and a holiday long weekend in much of Europe and North America.

Also this week:

• If it wasn’t a short week, we would definitely be attending the SME Governance Workshophosted by the Egyptian Private Equity Association and IFC on 23-24 April. If you run an SME, you should try to make it.
• President Abdel Fattah El Sisi is due to head to Beijing for China’s Belt and Road Forum. The gathering takes place on 25 April.

Is salvation for active fund managers a new type of ETF? After years of passive funds eating the lunch of professional stock pickers, a new type of exchange-traded fund (ETF) that’s now getting regulatory approval in the United States could hold out hope for active fund managers. The so-called active ETF allows active fund managers to package together a bundle of stocks — and keep the constituents hidden for as long as a quarter before they need to be reported.

This effectively allows fund managers to “package their active strategies into an ETF wrapper,” the Financial Times reports. “If investors show support for active ETFs, they could become the vehicle of choice for fund managers, ending the hegemony of the mutual fund, which has begun to wane under the strain of the shift towards passive investing,” the salmon-colored paper concludes.

Warnings of an “earnings recession” in the US and Europe appear to have been greatly exaggerated: Initial 1Q earnings releases by US blue-chip companies have alleviated fears among some analysts of a so-called “earnings recession,” the FT says. Earnings were projected to fall 4.6% during the first quarter and 0.4% in the second, but earnings of major US banks have so far surpassed expectations.

In international news this morning:

A comedian is about to become president of one of our largest trade and tourism partners. There is no better lede on the subject than this from Reuters: “Ukraine entered uncharted political waters on Sunday after exit polls showed a comedian with no political experience and few detailed policies had easily won enough votes to become the next president of a country at war.” Ukraine is one of our largest suppliers of wheat and a has of late been a top three tourism market for Egypt — just behind number-one Germany and just ahead of Saudi Arabia.

A series of coordinated explosions killed more than 200 people and injured at least 450 in Sri Lanka on Sunday morning, the Reuters reports. The attacks, for which no one has yet claimed responsibility, targeted churches holding Easter mass services and international hotels. The Sri Lankan government has imposed a nationwide curfew and limited social media access while it investigates the attacks, Bloomberg reports. The Egyptian foreign ministry and Al Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed Al Tayeb both issued statements condemning the attacks.

Also making news:

• Talks between Sudan’s transitional military council and protest leaders have broken down after the military refused to transfer power to a civilian authority, the FT says.
• Thousands demonstrated in the Moroccan capital Rabat yesterday demanding that the government release 42 activists who had campaigned against unemployment and corruption, the BBC reports.

PSA #1- Stress is heavily tied to heart disease, particularly in people under the age of 50. That’s the takeaway from a study that found folks diagnosed with a stress disorder are 37% more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than the general population. Are you just anxious and depressed and not suffering from a “stress disorder”? Don’t be smug: You’re also at risk.

PSA #2- Breast or bottle? Cry it out or cuddle? Working moms: Yay or nay? The New York Times marshals data to look at the questions that bedevil new parents.

PSA #3- It is a short work week here in Cairo, with the country shutting down on Thursday for a very long weekend. The EGX is closed, as are banks, from 25-29 April (Thursday-Monday) as well as Wednesday, 1 May. Look for the mercury to rise to 33°C by the start of the long weekend on Thursday.

That leads us straight into Ramadan, which the National Astronomy Institute says will start on Monday, 6 May, at which time banks and the EGX traditionally move to shortened Ramadan hours.

Too bad we can’t watch this instead of whatever mosalsalat will plague us this year: Egyptian-American comedian Ramy Youssef is getting plenty of praise from Glamour, Mashable, Rolling Stone and even CNN for his semi-autobiographical series Ramy. The series, which he wrote, directed, and starred in, is said to offer a new take on issues facing a practicing millennial Muslim in the US. The show is available for binging on Hulu now, but only for our readers in the US. Readers in Egypt can catch the trailer on Youtube (watch, runtime: 1:58) — it’s promising enough that we would have added it to our to-be-watched list. Warning: If you have rugrats at home, you probably don’t want the kiddies listening while you steam the trailer.