Turkey Wake-up call: Macro, Political and Equity News, 18th February

BIST inched down 0.14% yesterday after a day of ups and downs, chasing the profit-taking moves in global peers. Banks were again the major culprit with the 1.09% loss in their sector index amid institutional selling in private lenders while the state lenders were strong on news about HALKB's court case in the U.S. FROTO, TOASO, TTRAK, KORDS, HEKTS, SASA, ODAS, and grocery chains were among the better performers among non-banks while MPARK, INDES, KOZAA, AKSA, AEFES, BRISA, and NETAS topped the decliners. Today, our key macro agenda item is the monthly monetary Policy Council meeting with the decision on policy rates due 2PM local time. Consensus (Bloomberg survey) call is no change in the benchmark weekly repo rate of 17.00% for the second month while only 3 out 25 survey participants anticipate a hike of 100bps. Separately, February'21 Consumer Confidence Index compiled by TurkStat is due 10AM. In the revised series, the index had jumped 4.0% on a sequential basis to a 21-month high of 83.3 in January. We predict a sideways open with a positive bias for the BIST given the similar outlook for key European markets. U.S. futures are down a few points, but holding onto a good part of their c.0.4% overnight gains after the hour we left while Asian bourses are mostly trading in the red.