We have a nice long weekend ahead of us, as Sunday is off in observance of 30 June. Banks and the stock exchange will be closed. Enterprise will also be off on Sunday, and we’ll be back in your inbox at the appointed hour on Monday morning.

That doesn’t mean the president has the weekend off, though: President Abdel Fattah El Sisi left for Japan yesterday to attend this weekend’s G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, according to an Ittihadiya statement. The president will represent all 54 African Union countries at the gathering, which takes place Friday and Saturday. Look for US-China trade to be in the spotlight, with Donald Trump and Xi Jinping due to have a chinwag on the sidelines of the summit.

Coming up next week: Our friends at AmCham will be hosting Electricity Minister Mohamed Shaker at their monthly luncheon on Tuesday, 2 July. You can register for the event here.

The Pharaohs secured a place in the 2019 Afcon round of 16 last night after they comfortably beat DR Congo 2-0 at the Cairo International Stadium, Reuters reports. Ahmed Elmohamady opened the scoring in the 25th minute before Mo Salah doubled the lead two minutes before halftime.

Abu Dhabi Financial Group and Dubai-listed Shuaa Capital have agreed to merge, setting up the creation of an entity with USD 12.8 bn in combined assets under management, Shuaa said in a press release. The transaction is expected to wrap-up sometime in 3Q. The combined entity will be 42%-owned by Shuaa’s shareholders and 58% by ADFG’s.

Time to go bullish on emerging-market currencies? Morgan Stanley is going full bull on emerging-market currencies as an anticipated return to easing by the world’s major central banks puts pressure on the USD, according to Bloomberg. The MSCI EM Currency Index has risen to its highest level since April, as USD bears begin putting money into developing currencies.

While we’re on the subject: EFG Hermes’ Mohamed Abu Basha said yesterday that the prospect of a non-financial agreement with IMF bodes well for inflows into Egypt — which is currently riding high as the world’s most attractive carry trade. We have more on this in this morning’s Macro Picture, below.

Want to max out EM returns? Pray for the worst: Media frenzies over particularly bad pieces of news more often than not translate to higher returns on EM assets, according to research cited by the Financial Times. Why? The brain behind the study, Jan Dehn, head of research at Ashmore, theorizes that the media hyperbole often accompanying bad news causes a wave of irrational selling, thereby creating value.

Our Bitcoin goof earlier this week now seems (nearly) prophetic: The price of Bitcoin skyrocketed yesterday, hitting fresh 17-month highs of USD 13,485 before dramatically falling back to near USD 12k, CNBC reports. Analysts suggested that Mark Zuckerberg’s new pet crypto project has been responsible for the rapid appreciation.

Kuwaiti equities could be upgraded by MSCI to emerging market status in 2020,the equity index provider said in a statement on Tuesday (pdf) after conducting its latest market classification review. If approved, nine Kuwaiti stocks would be included in the MSCI EM Equity Index. MSCI will make its final decision by 31 December. Currently classified as a frontier market, Kuwait accounted for a quarter of the MSCI Frontier Markets Index in early June, the FT reports. The potential shift to EM status is expected to bring an extra USD 2.8 bn in passive investment flows into the Gulf country’s stock market.

Need a refresher on the key differences between frontier and emerging markets? We’ve got you covered.

The latest ‘Robots are taking over everything’ report: You better not be getting too comfortable with your skill set because the robots are coming and they will ki– … take your job, CNBC reminds us. A new study by Oxford Economics claims the next 11 years could see China lose as many as 11 mn jobs, the US 1.5 mn and the European Union 2 mn. We don’t know where Egypt fits in all of this, but let’s hope our status as a developing country will for once play in our favor.

PSA- Thinking about a startup and need affordable co-working space? Our friends at the CIT Ministry’s Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (Tiec) are providing a coworking space for entrepreneurs and startups at its headquarters in Smart Village (details here in pdf). Small startups can use the space at no charge for three months after registering and may be able to renew depending on availability. You can register here.