If you absorb nothing else in your US-election-induced stupor, know that aside from whether Hillary or Donald wins, there are a handful Egyptian stories people will (or should) be talking about on this very slow news morning. (Slow if you discount what was, at dispatch time at least, a nail-biter in Amreeka.)

Good: The float of the EGP and prospects of an IMF facility sent the EGX30 up 2.5% yesterday (YTD: +44%), with the benchmark breaking through the 10,000 barrier. That’s nice, of course, but what’s particularly significant is that foreign investors were again heavy net buyers, snapping up shares to the tune of EGP 563 mn. Turnover was again high at EGP 1.8 bn, or about 4x the trailing 90-day average.

Great: IMF boss Christine Lagarde confirmed yesterday that the IMF’s executive board will consider the USD 12 bn extended fund facility for Egypt on the agenda for its 11 November executive board meeting. More on that in Speed Round.

Ugly: We’re business / finance / econ types, but longtime readers know our penchant for armchair political analysis, and we’re particularly concerned about the impact yesterday’s court ruling that effectively bars the transfer of the strategic islands Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia. Exactly how bad relations are with Saudi Arabia is an open question in view of the announcement yesterday that Saudi Aramco would be cutting off petroleum deliveries indefinitely. The ruling is salt in an open wound. We have a bit more in Speed Round, below. Guess we’ll still be diving there, after all.

Just over the horizon: We have nothing new to report on the so-called 11/11 protests, though one of the more astute observers of matters activist / political we know commented yesterday: “You know, Dream Park just did the government a solid by offering half-price tickets on Friday. Think of it: ‘Damn, I know I should go protest, but the Death Train is 50% off? See ya.’”

Finally: The CBE puts the average exchange rate at EGP 17.97 (sell) and 17.58 (buy) to the greenback yesterday. We’ve heard anecdotal reports that there’s some activity on the parallel market at about 18.25 (a figure confirmed by Ahram Online). Parallel volumes are virtually non-existent at the moment. (Oddly enough, we also witnessed a streetside transaction while stuck in Garden City traffic yesterday.) Just a friendly reminder to hoarders: When market-clearing rates are hit, currencies often fall rather quickly to their fair value. Y’all might want to think about locking in gains / minimizing potential losses sometime soon. Just saying.