Turkey Wake-up call: Macro, Political and Equity News, 5th March

BIST added 0.46% yesterday as afternoon buying led to some outperformance in Turkish stocks vs the European peers. After a wobbly start and drifting mostly in the negative territory until around 2:30PM, BIST100 index found some traction in the afternoon and managed to close the day with some gains. Banks gained 1.84% on average, turning out to be a driver rather than a drag on the headline index this time. KRDMD, ENKAI, VESTL, AEFES, ULKER, AKSEN, and ARCLK topped the non-bank gainers while FROTO, THYAO, KOZAA, YATAS, BRISA, and LOGO were among the weak spots. Today, our local macro agenda involves the Treasury's cash budget balance for February'21 to be disclosed at 5:30PM local time. BIST seems headed for a negative start given the weak sentiment in global markets following FED chairman Powell's remarks on rising bond yields last night. U.S. futures are down a few points on top of the 0.9-1.1% overnight losses after we left and Asian equity benchmarks are almost all trading in the red. Lira is also weak with the USDTRY pair around 7.5370 vs 7.4290 at yesterday's closing bell.