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.
“No one group, like the Muslim Brotherhood, can control and dominate Egypt,” Ayman el-Leithy, a 47-year-old accountant, said in the article. “Anyone who wants to rule as a dictator is not fit to rule Egypt.”
Last year, the violence over Mubarak’s rule caused the Egypt’s stock market to plummet, and Eyptian stocks have been recovering for the most part of the year as the successful democratic elections helped stabilize the outlook. [Political Stability Brings Investors Back to Egypt ETF]
Market Vectors Egypt Index ETF
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Max Chen contributed to this article.