Welcome to another workweek, ladies and gentlemen — and to week two of Ramadan.

Driving the agenda this week (caffeine withdrawal aside):

• Earnings season will hit a crescendo. Results from those companies that have so-far reported have been generally solid;
• The prognostication begins ahead of the central bank’s meeting on Thursday, 23 May to set interest rates;
• Will turmoil in global equity markets spill over into EM and to Egypt, where trading volumes are already thin thanks to the Ramadan slowdown?

GLOBAL MARKETS QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Have you ever seen the movie ‘Airplane’? It was just a bad week to stop sniffing glue.” (See the punch-drunk traders story, below).

International markets are looking rather messy at the moment. The new week begins after what can only be described as a hell of a run as Wall Street posted its worst week so far this year.

Uber made history with its trading debut — as one of the worst-performing ever, Fortune reports. The ride hailing giant’s shares fell 7.6% on its first day of trading in New York, making it the ninth-worst stock market debut of all time. This makes collective losses of USD 618 mn for investors who bought the 180 mn shares at the USD 45 IPO price — the worst for a US listing since 1975 (excluding foreign listings via American Depository Receipts).

Who’s to blame? Basically everyone. Analysts tell the Financial Times Uber’s business model, the underwriters, the market and the retail investors are at fault. Reuters looks at what’s next for other startups planning to IPO this year, including Slack, Casper, and the owner of WeWork, while Bloomberg bluntly declares the IPO as having “joined the ranks of Wall Street’s flops.”

Late to the conversation? Go read Dan Primack’s rundown for Axios of how Uber got caught in the perfect storm.

POST-UBER MUST READ if you drink VC Kool-Aid: Was Uber’s IPO the end of an era of “mediocrity and small thinking” in Silicon Valley? That’s the contention of Matt Rosof writing for CNBC.

There just might be a lesson for investment bankers in Jumia’s share price collapse. Jumia, the self-styled “African Amazon” that made headlines by going public on the New York Stock Exchange in early April, saw its share price fall nearly 25% on Friday after a short-seller accused it of fraud. Citron Research claims significant discrepancies between a confidential presentation to investors in October 2018 and the company’s IPO filing. Jumia, it alleges, “inflated its active customer and active merchant numbers by 20-30%, and [hid the fact] that 41% of its deliveries were either returned, not delivered or canceled,” the Financial Times reports.

Maybe it’s time to short them all and let a higher power sort them out? That’s the basic contention of Horsman Capital’s Russell Clark in A short seller bets it all on a spectacular market crash.

IN THE BACKGROUND of it all: Trump is still playing hardball on trade with China. Trump has ordered the government to begin raising tariffs on the remaining USD 300 bn of Chinese imports, according to a statement by the Office of the US Trade Representative. The US president last week hiked tariffs to 25% from 10% on USD 200 bn worth of Chinese imports. Amid the suggestion that neither side may actually want an agreement, The Donald is now said to be edging toward imposing tariffs on all Chinese imports.

Just don’t get us started on his claim that tariffs are a direct cash transfer from China to America. Tariffs just don’t work that way, dude.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? It’s anyone’s guess. Punch-drunk traders stop guessing as Trump runs markets ragged, declares Bloomberg in a piece best read alongside the Financial Times’ Investors sweat as game of chicken over Sino-US trade heats up.

Other headlines worth knowing about this morning as you muddle on without coffee:

• Naguib Sawiris was one of the folks who bailed out Mustafa Abdel-Wadood, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• The US is bolstering its military presence in this part of the world in response to what it says is a “growing threat from Iran,” the Associated Press and Reuters report.
• The ANC has retained power in South Africa, albeit with a smaller majority and after a poll that saw low voter turnout.

SIGN OF THE TIMES: Negative fee asset managers. “The cut-throat fee war in asset management has become so intense that companies are thinking the unthinkable: paying investors to manage their money.” A boutique asset manager effectively wants to give customers USD 5 for every USD 10k they invest, the Financial Times reports.

What we’re tracking today, the Ramadan Edition:

A pre-iftar reading list to kill time between your post-workout shower and the breaking of the fast:

• There’s a 49% chance the world as we know it will end by 2050, says Jared Diamond, the celebrated author of Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse in an interview with New York magazine to support Upheaval, his new book.
• The surprising boost you get from strangers argues that “sometimes a stranger — not a friend or a loved one — can significantly improve our day, providing comfort or helping to broaden our perspective.” (WSJ)
• How to raise successful kids according to a mom who raised kids who went on to become the CEO of YouTube, the co-founder of 23andMe, and a professor of pediatrics. (CNBC)

RAMADAN PSA #1- Mo Salah is expected to play today in Liverpool’s Premier League title-decider against the Wolverhampton Wanderers, press reports suggest. Also: You can expect half your staff to ask for the day off on Sunday, 2 June so they can catch up on sleep after staying up the night before to watch Liverpool take on Tottenham in the Champions League final.

RAMADAN PSA #2- Bank hours are at 9am-2pm for employees; doors are open from 9:30am until 1:30pm for customers. The trading day at the EGX runs 10:00am until 1:30pm.

RAMADAN PSA #3- The mercury is going to keep rising all week. Look for a high today of 36°C rising to 40°C by week’s end, according to our favorite weather app — with no respite in sight. Welcome to summer, folks.

So, when do we eat? Maghrib is at 6:39 pm CLT today in Cairo. You’ll have until 3:25 am tomorrow morning to caffeinate / finish your sohour.

WANT TO HAVE IFTAR WITH US? So we goofed a few weeks ago and accidently revealed what we’ve been cooking up in the kitchen: our first dedicated industry vertical, a weekly publication that will cover everything to do with the nation's infrastructure segment that we’ve dubbed the Enterprise Hard Hat. We're delighted to be presenting Enterprise Hard Hat in association with our friends at Orascom Construction. We look forward to the official launch of Enterprise Hard Hat soon and promise all of you that you'll see the zero issue before long.

But it won’t be our only one. Among other products, we’re launching a series of industry verticals. We’re asking you — the readers who make this all possible — to help us decide which industries are next.

How? Take our very short survey, in which we ask you which sector you would most like to see us explore in a dedicated vertical. You can choose from the seven sectors we have included or name a sector yourself. We would also like to know what it is you enjoy and like about Enterprise and what it is you don’t. The survey will run all week.

We’ll be drawing the names of 10 survey takers and inviting them to join us for iftar on Wednesday, 29 May at the Four Seasons Cairo at the First Residence. Think of it as a chance to get to know some of you and discuss the survey questions, your views on Enterprise, the economy, life and the universe, so please mark the date. We’ll announce the winners on Tuesday, 21 May. (Yes, we know — iftars are less fun than sohours. But sohour hours are in the middle of our work night, so…)

IF YOU WANT TO ENTER THE DRAW, you need to make sure to give us your name, company, phone number and email at the end of the survey.

Become a sponsor of an industry vertical: If you would like to be a sponsor of an Enterprise vertical, contact Fady Sherif on fsherif@inktankcommunications.com. We’ll talk about your interests and our editorial goals and see if we can’t do something amazing together.