The Egyptian stock market suspended trading minutes after the opening on Thursday, after the main index leapt 6.4 percent on hopes for economic and political stability after Wednesday's takeover of the country by the army.
A jump in share prices by more than 5 percent triggers a half-hour suspension.
The news follows last night's dramatic scenes in Egypt, in which Mohammad Mursi was ousted as president and detained at a military facility as a “preventative” measure.
News that the army had toppled Mursi also impacted commodities markets.
In Singapore, brent crude oil slipped from a two-week high in prices, due to the threat of a disruption in supplies from the Middle East.
“There is no sign of supply disruption,” Tetsu Emori, a commodities fund manager at Astmax Investments in Tokyo, told Reuters. “People are thinking about the potential impact on oil supply in the Middle East if there is turmoil in other countries.”
Gold prices, which have seen massive declines this year, climbed slightly on the news from Egypt. “It is typical safe-haven buying,” a Hong Kong-based trader told Reuters.
