Over the past few days, the Egyptian stock market index has been plunging, most vociferously this Wednesday alone by more than 5.17%, reaching its lowest level in a year, with another 0.91% decline in the beginning of trading today. The assumed causes for the plunge more immediately include the announcement that Egypt might be taken off the MSCI emerging markets index (Greece has just been downgraded to an “emerging market” status, becoming the first developed country to experience that). More generally, there are also the concerns over the potential outcome from the upcoming, and expectedly large scale, June 30th protests calling for early presidential elections. Many fear the country might fall into a whirlpool of deep(er) instability, depending on what ends up taking place on that day.

This announcement, to be sure, seems to not be breaking any patterns. In fact, Ahram Online has counted 16 downgrades by major international credit agencies between January of 2011 and May of 2013. As highlights: At the moment, Egypt has been downgraded by Standard & Poor's to a rating of C, government bonds have been downgraded successively by Moody’s Investors Service from B2 to Caa1, and Fitch Ratings has also downgraded Egypt’s sovereign rating from B+ to B.

Egypt’s foreign currency reserves, which stood at $36 billion around the time of the revolution, have recently climbed back from a record low of $13.4 billion in March to $16.04 billion this month. However, this reserve increase mostly comes from loans and deposits from Qatar and Libya in Egypt’s central bank, and not as the result of any genuine rebounding of the economy, leading to substantial increases in foreign debt. The extreme uncertainty surrounding the exchange rate of the Egyptian pound and what is seen as an almost inevitable significant devaluation, in addition the recent intermittent unavailability of the US dollar and the burgeoning black market as well as the recent currency controls, all aren’t exactly news anymore.

Even further, in April the International Monetary Fund cut Egypt’s economic growth forecasts from 3% to 2% for the year (whereas Egypt had been averaging 4-5% growth rates for years before the revolution), set unemployment expectations at 13.5% and expected consumer prices to increase in 2014 by 13.7%. The deficit has risen in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year from around $16.8 billion during a similar time frame last year to around $26.4 billion. And on a somewhat unrelated note, and as yet another example, you also have Egypt’s rising food prices as well as the increasing, daily, multiple power outages and fuel shortages, which have eased lately due to a blend of crisis management and a Qatari influx of gas.