Egypt reform story still in “fairly early” stage, says Exotix Partners’ Malik
Egypt reform story still in “fairly early” stage, says Exotix Partners’ Malik: Egypt’s reform story is still in a fairly early stage as the country looks to capitalize on the strong start of the reform process, said Hasnain Malik, global head of equity research at emerging markets-focused investment bank Exotix Partners. We have a couple of years to go before these reforms — particularly legislative changes — become primary drivers for the performance of Egyptian equities, said Malik. Right now, the Egypt story is all about interest rates, which Malik believes will remain high given ongoing turbulence in global emerging markets. Interest rates have the firm gravitating towards financial stocks, including CIB.
Have we weathered the EM storm? We may have seen the worst of both a much stronger USD and higher oil prices, said Malik. More importantly, however, the market has correctly distinguished over the course of the summer between those few emerging markets that do have extreme external vulnerability — and the bulk of emerging and frontier markets that don’t, he tells Bloomberg TV (watch, runtime: 3:48).