The Egyptian Stock Market Is Breathtaking

Think the US market has been on a nice run? Try Egypt.

Here's a 1-year chart of the CASE-30 index, via Bloomberg. The index is up a breathtaking 55% just since last summer.

Coincidentally or not (probably not, actually), the bottom almost perfectly coincides with the Egyptian army toppling Morsi last summer, proving once again that moments of extreme chaos can make for tremendous buying opportunities.

It's a good time to be checking in on the Egyptian market, since we're basically exactly three years since Mubarak toppled, and the Egyptian market crashed. Lo and behold, with the recent rally, stocks are finally within range of where they were when Mubarak was in power.

Meanwhile, if you're looking for a fun comparison, here's a look at the Egyptian market vs. the Greek market (another country that's been through a lot the last few years).

Despite very different circumstances and forces, the trajectories are kind of uncanny. For what it's worth, we've been writing about the similarities between Greek and Egyptian financial markets since early 2012 and it's pleasing to see that the connection has hung together.

What does it mean? Well it could just be totally spurious. But it could also mean that attempts to ascribe market movements to a story on the ground risks losing the big picture. There's a whole world of capital flows, with investment money moving in and out of borders and national markets all the time. As both countries have been in deep turmoil, it's not surprising that attitudes towards both markets have ebbed and flowed at the same time, as the global appetite for risk undulates.