Turkey Wake-up call: Macro, Political and Equity News, 11th January

BIST added 0.58% yesterday in its sixth consecutive day of gains since the beginning of the new year. After a slight positive open, benchmark BIST100 index gradually climbed to 2,070 level in the afternoon before shedding 25 points in the last thirty minutes of the session as the weakness in American indices seemed to be triggering profit taking in Turkish stocks. Banks lost 0.08% on average as they resumed their underperformance after Friday's decent jump. Aviation stocks led by THYAO as well as CCOLA, ASELS, EKGYO, TKFEN, YATAS, and BRISA topped the gainers while TOASO, BIMAS, FROTO, AGHOL, ISGYO, and MGROS were among the weaker names. Coming to this morning, our local macro agenda involves November'21 Balance of Payments data due at 10AM local time. Bloomberg survey puts the monthly CA deficit at USD2.50bn vs the USD3.55bn deficit recorded for the same month of 2020. Separately, Treasury will issue 5-year TLREF-indexed bonds and reissue 7-year FRNs in double borrowing auctions in the domestic market. Domestic redemption for the week totals TL12.74bn while the Treasury has raised TL6.95bn in its double auctions yesterday. We anticipate a slight positive start for the BIST given the 0.7-1.5% overnight rebound in U.S. indices after the hour we left while Asian equities are mostly trading in the red. Lira is a bit stronger with USDTRY around the 13.76 mark in early trades vs 13.8192 at yesterday's BIST closing bell.