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

BIST climbed 1.36% yesterday in its fourth consecutive day of gains as the supportive mood abroad continued to attract selective institutional buyers to Turkish blue-chips. BIST100 closed near its session-high after spending the entire day in positive territory. Banks fell behind with the 0.74% gain for their sector index as GARAN outperformed while ISCTR and the two state lenders lagged peers. EREGL, KRDMD, EKGYO, TOASO, KCHOL, DOAS, TKNSA, and aviation stocks topped the long list of gainers in the BIST100 space while FROTO, INDES, MPARK, DEVA, and CCOLA were among the rare decliners. Coming to this morning, we have a busy macro agenda starting with March'21 Balance of Payments data due at 10AM local time. Bloomberg survey puts the monthly CA deficit at USD3.80bn vs the USD5.41bn deficit recorded for the same month of 2020. Separately, March'21 Industrial Production numbers are also due 10AM. Bloomberg consensus +14.1% yoy based on the estimates for calendar-adjusted series and -0.5% mom based on the seasonally & calendar-adjusted series. Lastly, summary minutes of the latest Monetary Policy Council meeting will be released at 2PM local time. BIST is off to negative open as global equity markets led by technology sectors turn south on surging commodity prices that stoke concerns about inflation. S&P futures are down c.0.4% in early trades on top of the 0.8-0.9% overnight losses in main indices after we left and Asian equity markets are almost all trading in the red with visible declines in Japan and Taiwan. To remind; Turkish markets will be closed in observance of the Eid holiday after a half-day trading tomorrow until next Monday. Accordingly, trades executed in the BIST today and the morning session of tomorrow will settle together on Tuesday, 18-May.