After closing down Friday and moving into negative territory early Monday due to developments in Egypt and other factors, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained strength on positive news from Exxon Mobil and moved up about 0.4% in early afternoon trading on Monday to trade near 11,866.
And despite news on Monday that Van Eck Global will exercise its right to suspend creation order on its MarketVectors Egypt Index ETF, the ETF rose 6.7% on Monday by early afternoon to trade at about $17.30. It declined about 14% last week.
Van Eck says the stock exchange in Egypt is closed "for an undetermined period." And while it has suspended creation order, it will continue to take redemption orders.
Egypt, is experiencing its second week of political protests. On Friday, Fitch Ratings switched its rating on the government's debt to negative. It had been at BB+. And on Monday, Moody's dropped its rating on Egyptian bonds a notch and changed its outlook to negative, too; it had been Ba1 and is now Ba2.
Like the MarketVectors Egypt Index ETF, the SPDR S&P Emerging Middle East & Africa ETF, which fell 6% last week, moved up 1.2% on Monday to trade near $69.40.
