Turkey Wake-up call: Macro, Political and Equity News, 22nd April, Global Securities

BIST suffered a 2.55% drop in its third consecutive day of losses. It was a day almost totally spent in the negative territory with small-cap stocks taking a bigger hit and banks outperforming with the 1.41% drop in their sector index. Automotive stocks, KCHOL, ARCLK, KRDMD, CCOLA, ODAS, BRISA, SELEC, ALARK, and KORDS felt the brunt of the broad-based sell-off while AKSA and SASA were among the handful gainers among the BIST100 constituents. Today, our local macro agenda involves March'21 Consumer Confidence Index compiled by TurkStat due 10AM local. In the revised series, the index had climbed 2.5% on a sequential basis to a 31-month high of 86.7 in March. Separately, summary minutes of the latest Monetary Policy Council meeting will be released at 2PM. We project a cautiously positive open for the BIST given the better sentiment in global markets while newsflow related to likely U.S. recognition of Ottoman era clashes between Turks and Armenians as genocide and the weakness in lira in early trades (USDTRY around the 8.22 mark vs 8.1845 at yesterday's closing bell) may create some headwinds. U.S. futures are down a few points but holding onto the bulk of their 0.3-0.5% overnight gains after we left and Asian markets are mostly trading in the green. We kindly remind that the Turkish markets will be closed tomorrow (23-April) in observance of a national holiday and accordingly, today’s trades in the BIST will settle on Tuesday, 27-April.