The Egypt exchange traded fund is one of this year’s best performers, but the fund is under pressure after a fresh round of political unrest centered around newly elected President Mohamed Mursi.
The Market Vectors Egypt Index ETF (NYSEArca: EGPT) fell 6.8% over the past week. The ETF has gained 38.3% year-to-date.
Mursi seized new powers last week, sending Egyptian stocks down almost 10%, Voice of America reports.
Last Saturday, the Supreme Judicial Council condemned the decree, calling it “an unprecedented attack” on the independence of the judiciary process.
“We are back to square one, politically, socially,” Mohamed Radwan of Pharos Securities, an Egyptian brokerage firm, said in a Reuters article.
“Investors know that Mursi’s decisions will not be accepted and that there will be clashes on the street,” Osama Mourad of Arab Financial Brokerage, said in the Reuters article.
Egyptian protestors flocked Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the staging area of last year’s uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak, in response to Mursi’s decree to shield himself from judicial review, Bloomberg reports.