Amid Egypt's Chaos, a Glimmer of Economic Hope

Investors in Egypt are taking seriously the Rothschildian dictum that the time to buy (or at least hold) is when there’s blood in the streets. While lamenting the violence that has taken about 1,000 lives, they appear to be betting that the military-backed government will consolidate power and run the Egyptian economy better than did the Islamist government that it overthrew in July. Whether their tentative optimism is justified is hard to say.

“I’m comfortable with this kind of military regime,” says Lutz Roehmeyer, a Berlin-based fund manager at Landesbank Berlin Investment who oversees €11 billion ($15 billion). “We’ve seen this from time to time in emerging markets, and it usually serves as a force of stabilization.” He adds: “It’s more likely that we’ll get stabilization than a civil war because Egyptians can easily look across at Syria to see a clear example of where they do not want to head.”