Turkey Wake-up call: Macro, Political and Equity News, 19th August

BIST lost 0.83% yesterday with most of the damage in the afternoon and ended its four-day winning streak. BIST100 index turned south after an uptick open and spent most of the day in the negative territory to close near its daily low. Banks fared slightly better with the 0.28% retreat in their sector index as HALKB outperformed. ENKAI, CCOLA, TTKOM, AKSEN, ALKIM, SELEC, and CIMSA were some of the fewer non-bank gainers while FROTO, EREGL, KRDMD, THYAO, PETKM, ARCLK, TTRAK, and TRGYO topped the decliners. Today, our local macro agenda involves summary minutes of the latest Monetary Policy Council meeting to be released at 2PM local time. We predict a slight negative start for the BIST as the global risk appetite seems to have weakened as yesterday's Fed minutes released last night indicate the start of the tapering of asset purchases later this year. U.S. futures are down c.0.3% on top of some 1% losses after the hour we left and Asian markets are almost all trading in the red. Lira is also weak with USDTRY above the 8.51 mark vs 8.4738 at yesterday's closing bell.