Turkey Wake-up call: Macro, Political and Equity News, 21st March

BIST added 0.50% on Friday, carrying its weekly gains to 4.40%. Benchmark BIST100 spent almost all of its day in positive territory and although most of its earlier gains had fizzled out in the afternoon, some closing orders in a bunch of blue-chip names propped it up. Banks again lagged with the 0.06% increase for their index amid pressure on ISCTR and GARAN while HALKB outshined its peers. ENKAI, HEKTS, ALARK, BIMAS, AEFES, KOZAL, PETKM, CIMSA, BRISA, and YATAS topped the non-bank gainers while FROTO, ULKER, ARCLK, ASELS, TOASO, TAVHL, and ISMEN stood out among the day's weak spots. Coming to start of the new week, our local macro agenda involves tourist arrival numbers for February'22 due at 11AM local time. Foreign tourist arrivals had jumped 151.4% yoy to 1.28mn in January as the pandemic-related base effects were in play but were still down 28.3% compared to the same month of 2020. Separately, Treasury will reissue 4-year TLREF-indexed bonds and 7-year FRNs in double domestic borrowing actions before holding three more auctions/placements tomorrow ahead of this week's TL6.81bn in local redemptions. We anticipate a flattish open for the BIST given the softer sentiment abroad and the jump in crude oil prices this morning while noting the 1.0-1.2% overnight gains in main U.S. indices after the hour we left on Friday. S&P futures are down c.0.4% in early trades and Asian bourses are mostly trading in the red.