President Abdel Fattah El Sisi will meet today with US President Donald Trump on the second day of this three-day visit to Washington, DC. Regional security, terrorism, economic reform and human rights are all on the agenda, Reuters reports this morning, suggesting El Sisi will face light pressure on human rights and weapons purchases from Russia. El Sisi met yesterday with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The two are believed to have discussed regional issues including developments in Libya, Syria, Palestine and Yemen, according to Al Masry Al Youm.

The US media is piling on the pressure ahead of today’s meeting, as we note in this morning’s Egypt in the News, below.

Renaissance Capital’s annual Egypt Investors Conference gets underway this morning in Cape Town. EGX Chairman Mohamed Farid will deliver the keynote address on expanding the role of capital markets in Egypt’s economy. Tap or click here to view the preliminary agenda for the event (pdf), which wraps up tomorrow.

It is election day in Israel as our neighbors to the east head to the polls to decide whether right-wing Likud Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets a fifth term in office. He faces a stiff challenge from centrist Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz, a former chief of staff for the Israeli armed forces. Results should start coming in at 9pm CLT. Expect much scrambling to form a coalition government — no single party in Israel has ever won a majority mandate.

Reading tea leaves in Sudan: Soldiers in at least one incident have moved to protect protestors demonstrating against President Omar Al Bashir, a signal that media outlets including the the FT and Ahram Online (citing sources in Sudan) are reading like proverbial tea leaves.

Other news triggers to keep your eyes on in the coming days:

• Monthly inflation figures are due out tomorrow. Annual headline inflation accelerated to 14.4% in February, up from 12.7% the previous month. In a report earlier this week, the IMF urged Egypt to take it easy with the monetary policy easing to avoid another surge in inflation, Bloomberg noted.
• AmCham is holding its annual HR Day at the Cairo Marriott Hotel tomorrow (Wednesday, 10 April). You can register here.
• The IMF and World Bank are holding their spring meetings on 12-14 April in Washington, DC.
• The UK will, theoretically, leave the European Union on Friday, 12 April. Prime Minister Theresa May has asked for a three-month extension to 30 June.
• First quarter earnings season gets underway in the United States at week’s end as JPMorgan and Wells Fargo report results. The expectation, as we noted last week, is for corporate earnings in the US and Europe to fall in 1Q for the first time since 2016.
• The House of Representatives will vote on the proposed constitutional amendments on Tuesday, 16 April.

A bad sign for upcoming tech IPOs as Pinterest IPO goes to market below last valuation: Social media company Pinterest will sell 75 mn shares at a price between USD 15-17 in its IPO later this year, according to a regulatory filing. This would value the company at around USD 11.3 bn. The IPO price is a significant discount from the USD 21.54 share price in its last fundraising round in 2017. The move could be “an ominous sign” for other upcoming tech listings (including Uber, Slack and Zoom) that investor interest is waning, the Financial Times says. The decision to IPO below the company’s prior valuation may have been influenced by Lyft’s recent IPO, whose share price fell substantially after listing, the WSJ suggests.

On the subject of IPOs, UAE-based payments and FX company Finablr will list on the London Stock Exchange today in a move that could generate USD 500 mn, sources told Reuters. The company will reportedly sell 25-30% of its shares after rival Network International’s listing was valued at as much as USD 3.1 bn following strong investor demand.

Aramco bond orders keep on rising: Saudi Aramco’s maiden bond issuance is currently 6x oversubscribed, as USD 60 bn of orders are now in the books for a USD 10 bn offering, the WSJ says.

Also on our radar this morning:

• Oil prices hit a six-month high yesterday, with the Brent index reaching USD 71.10 just before midnight. Analysts point to the impact of US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela and the potential fallout from fighting in Libya as fueling the commodity’s rise.
• The US is considering slapping USD 11 bn in trade tariffs on Europe targeting aircraft, cheese and wine after WTO rulings found that the EU had illegally subsidized Airbus, the FT says.
• UK PM Theresa May could offer MPs a vote on a second referendum in an effort to persuade the opposition Labour Party to back her Brexit pact, The Telegraph has revealed.

Food for thought for the (barely) old among us: Why we wish we could once again party like it was 1999. Read: The best year of our lives in the New York Times.

*** QUESTION OF THE MORNING: We asked you yesterday and the answers have been inspiring. So we’re going to ask again every day until the end of the week: Does anyone out there know of homegrown Egyptian businesses that have successfully scaled up and expanded beyond our borders (not necessarily just to shiny Dubai)? We’re looking at great growth stories to feature in a new product we’re developing. Know someone? Drop us a line at editorial@enterprise.press.

Thank you to readers Hossam A.M., Walid H., Nadine B., Ismail T. and Karim A. for the great suggestions.

Extra special thanks to readers Hossam El-S. and Haitham M. for separately making our days brighter with exceptionally kind words.