Egyptian crisis fuels flight from EM ETFs

Egypt has been the preferred overweight nation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region ever since the United Arab Emirates debt crisis, but the security situation is weighing heavily on the area. As the Cairo Stock Exchange and Egyptian banks remained closed through Sunday and Monday investors scrambled to hedge exposure, leaving UAE indices trading 7% down on the Sunday. In general, emerging market equity ETFs saw outflows of $3.04bn last week, translating to 0.4% of assets, which represents the largest weekly outflow in the segment since July 2008. Given growing concerns ove...