Turkey Wake-up call: Macro, Political and Equity News, 1st March

BIST lost 0.32% yesterday after a day that was mostly spent in the negative zone. Banks dropped 1.79% on average amid weakness in private lenders except ISCTR and in their fourth consecutive day of relative underperformance. ASELS, TUPRS, DOAS, FROTO, KRDMD, TCELL, VESTL, and ISMEN were among the few non-bank gainers while aviation stocks, AEFES, TKFEN, MAVI, AKSA, ENKAI, and CIMSA led the long list of decliners. Coming to this morning, our local macro agenda is crowded, starting with February'22 PMI which will be announced at 10AM local time. The index had retreated 3.1% on a sequential basis to an 8-month low of 50.5 in January, while staying in expansion territory for the eighth consecutive month after the loosening of pandemic restrictions. This will be followed by Istanbul Chamber of Commerce's February'22 inflation numbers for metropolitan Istanbul due at noon local time. Lastly, BRSA will release banking industry aggregates for January'22 at 2PM. Cumulative industry profits stood at TL4.28bn in January'21 and at TL17.63bn in December'21. We anticipate a positive start for the BIST given the better sentiment in global equity markets this morning. U.S. futures are flat but holding onto the c.0.8% overnight gains after we left while Asian bourses are mostly trading in the green.