Back to the complete issue
Sunday, 13 August 2017

What we’re tracking on 13 August 2018

Please, God, let them lower interest rates. The central bank promised us that the 200 bps rate hike earlier this summer would be ‘temporary.’ Their first opportunity to prove this with a rate cut comes this Thursday, when its monetary policy committee is next scheduled to meet.

Where’s the market to short humankind? “It’s hard to price a potentially extinction event (at least for much of the Korean peninsula),” Timothy Ash, a senior strategist at Bluebay Asset Management, told Bloomberg in commentary on why financial markets haven’t really reacted much to the escalation in tensions between the US and North Korea. Templeton Emerging Markets Chairman Mark Mobius echoes a similar sentiment, saying “there’s nothing you can do about it — if something breaks out, we’re all finished anyway.” US President Donald Trump warned in a tweet over the weekend that, “Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely.” The Donald then RT’ed a tweet from US Pacific Command echoing US forces in Korea’s motto: “#USAF B-1B Lancer #bombers on Guam stand ready to fulfill USFK’s #FightTonight mission if called upon to do so.”

It seems likely to be a US-centric news week: Look for US movement this week on Chinese trade practices, where Trump will reportedly call on Monday for a probe — or not, if the ChiComs help out with North Korea. The Donald is also picking a fight with Venezuela and sending his son-in-law to launch a fresh round of Palestinian-Israeli talks.

Maybe it’s that summer is sliding to a close — or the prospect of nuclear apocalypse — but we’re feeling our age here at Enterprise. First, it was being told “Move over, millennials: Gen Z agencies are on the rise” by ad agency and media bible Digiday — with all of the precious exceptionalism with which headlines once told Gen X’ers they were ‘over’ because the millennials among us were here. Moving on up the age spectrum, we recently stumbled across this 2012 piece by author Marci Alboher (subtly pitching her book) on career changes in midlife to “make a difference.” Then there’s training for masters sports competitions in your 70s and beyond in “She Just Won 3 Gold Medals for Her Swimming. She’s Only 73.” And to cap it all off? The cutest love story we can remember reading in forever from the New York Times’ weddings column: “She’s 98. He’s 94. They Met at the Gym.

It’s going to be a more than a few years, we suspect, before we hit the same saturation point and this becomes relevant to Egypt, but Business Insider nevertheless has a good read in, “The retail apocalypse is heading straight for Kroger, Whole Foods, and Aldi.

Oh, and two pieces that were quite helpful to us this weekend: In a land of [redacted] internet, we got a bump from following some of the advice in Wired’s “Easy ways to make your janky wi-fi faster and better.” And Dave Zinczenko’s outfit at Best Life echoes Men’s Health during his iconic editorship with the very useful “60 Ways to Buy an Extra 60 Minutes Every Day,” which is nowhere near as clickbaity as it sounds.

Enterprise is a daily publication of Enterprise Ventures LLC, an Egyptian limited liability company (commercial register 83594), and a subsidiary of Inktank Communications. Summaries are intended for guidance only and are provided on an as-is basis; kindly refer to the source article in its original language prior to undertaking any action. Neither Enterprise Ventures nor its staff assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, whether in the form of summaries or analysis. © 2022 Enterprise Ventures LLC.

Enterprise is available without charge thanks to the generous support of HSBC Egypt (tax ID: 204-901-715), the leading corporate and retail lender in Egypt; EFG Hermes (tax ID: 200-178-385), the leading financial services corporation in frontier emerging markets; SODIC (tax ID: 212-168-002), a leading Egyptian real estate developer; SomaBay (tax ID: 204-903-300), our Red Sea holiday partner; Infinity (tax ID: 474-939-359), the ultimate way to power cities, industries, and homes directly from nature right here in Egypt; CIRA (tax ID: 200-069-608), the leading providers of K-12 and higher level education in Egypt; Orascom Construction (tax ID: 229-988-806), the leading construction and engineering company building infrastructure in Egypt and abroad; Moharram & Partners (tax ID: 616-112-459), the leading public policy and government affairs partner; Palm Hills Developments (tax ID: 432-737-014), a leading developer of commercial and residential properties; Mashreq (tax ID: 204-898-862), the MENA region’s leading homegrown personal and digital bank; Industrial Development Group (IDG) (tax ID:266-965-253), the leading builder of industrial parks in Egypt; Hassan Allam Properties (tax ID:  553-096-567), one of Egypt’s most prominent and leading builders; and Saleh, Barsoum & Abdel Aziz (tax ID: 220-002-827), the leading audit, tax and accounting firm in Egypt.