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Thursday, 22 February 2018

What we’re tracking on 22 February 2018

The US Federal Reserve sees the American economy gaining momentum. Minutes from Janet Yellen’s final meeting as Fed chair shows the US central bank have “marked up their growth forecasts since the previous month, encouraged by firm global growth, supportive financial markets and the potential for US tax cuts to boost the economy more than expected,” the Financial Times reports. That triggered a modest selloff in US markets yesterday, the Wall Street Journal notes, as it “became clearer the Fed might move more aggressively than anticipated later this year” to cut interest rates.” CNBC also has the story, including a blow-by-blow report on what it says was a “confusing” day: traders initially welcomed the Fed news before launching into the selloff.

A Swedish fund says to look at Egypt, Pakistan and Vietnam if you want to understand why frontier markets are starting to outshine emerging markets. Egyptian, Vietnamese and Pakistani equities make up almost 60% of the holdings of Tundra Sustainable Frontier Fund, which oversees USD 400 mn in assets and has had returns of 6.8% this year, beating 97% of its peers, according to Bloomberg. “These more exotic markets tend to hold up better than developing-nation stocks during market meltdowns as they’re still dominated by local investors,” the firm’s CEO Jon Scheiber said. Egypt was being held back policy-wise, but the country has political stability now and is back in an IMF program, Vice-CIO Shamoon Tariq said on why Egypt is one of the firm’s top picks.

The fund’s strategy is anchored in a shifting trend: The MSCI Frontier Market Index didn’t fall as much as the MSCI Emerging Markets Index as global equities plunged his month. The frontier gauge declined 6%, while the EMs gauge fell 10%. EMs had traditionally been beating out frontiers over the past decade.

Speaking of the frontier: Kenya has followed Egypt’s lead to EM bond markets, raising USD 2 bn in long-dated bonds just hours after the IMF froze access to a USD 1.5 bn standby credit facility because the East African nation had failed to meet certain conditions. Kenya priced a 10-year, USD 1 bn at 7.25%, while its USD 1 bn 30-year tranche was priced at 8.25%. Reuters and the Financial Times have the story

Egyptian squash champions continue to make us proud: Wesleyan University senior Laila Samy was awarded on Sunday the College Squash Association’s prestigious 2018 Betty Richey Award, marking the first time for the honor to be given to a player not enrolled in an Ivy League school or Trinity College. “The award is given to the women’s college squash player who best exemplifies the ideals of squash in her love and devotion to the game, her strong sense of fairness, and her excellence of play and leadership.”

The most-clicked stories in Enterprise this week included:

  • The Ice Cream Wars (BBC, Enterprise’s Documentary Pic of the Week, runtime: 36:33)
  • Egypt’s ranking on Bloomberg’s “Misery Index” improves—a bit. (Bloomberg)
  • What teenagers are learning from online [redacted]. (New York Times)
  • Woman in Upper Egypt chases down, beats the daylights out of her harasser (YouTube)
  • Airliner’s engine comes apart in mid-flight, and a Google employee recorded it. (Twitter video)

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