Our comments and expectations
External backdrop. The S&P 500 fell 0.5% yesterday, while yields continued to rise. Scott Bessent’s plan to repurchase long-term debt securities in an amount of up to $6 bn on Thursday — three times the volume envisaged last month — failed to have a positive impact on the market. After the announcement of the buyback plans, the decline in Treasury prices intensified, and the 10-year yield reached a new three-year high. In addition, oil weighed on the market, climbing above $101 per barrel Brent amid no signs of de-escalation in the conflict between the US and Iran, which said it was ready for further escalation of the standoff. The implied probability of a rate hike at next week’s Fed meeting rose to 60%. An even sharper decline was seen in European markets — the main indices fell 1.3–1.7%. After yesterday the price of natural gas in Europe rose above €80 per megawatt-hour for the first time since 2023, traders increased bets on policy tightening by the ECB at today’s meeting. The regulator is expected to raise borrowing costs by a quarter percentage point, to 2.5%, while swaps price in rate increases of about 90 basis points by December 2027. This morning in Asia, sentiment is moderately negative; Hang Seng is down the most — by 1.3%. Oil trades at $101.3 per barrel, and S&P 500 index futures are up 0.18%.
KASE Index. KASE rose 0.2% yesterday. Quotes have come quite close to resistance levels, where previous all-time highs are located. Given the lack of sufficient momentum for a breakout, the index is down 0.9% today. The main negative impact came from our GDRs and ADS on Western exchanges.
Index stocks. Kaspi shares posted the biggest decline yesterday, likely succumbing to negativity from the US market coupled with the record date for quarterly dividends. Fixing for the ADS is scheduled for September 10, and the net payout amount, including taxes, according to Bloomberg, is $2.099. People’s Bank GDRs on the LSE fell 2.5%, and Kazatomprom’s — 2.1%. Meanwhile, uranium rose 0.3% and moved back above $90 per pound. Most likely, both stocks declined amid the broader drop in the European market. The biggest gain yesterday was posted by KazTransOil shares, up 1.8% and reaching 1220 tenge. The company reported a 4% increase in consolidated oil transportation and petroleum products transshipment volumes over eight months, to 31.89 mn tonnes. Consolidated freight turnover rose 2%. Today from the market open we are seeing the expected decline in KSPI, HSBK and KZAP shares. At the same time, KazTransOil continues to rise and may reach highs since April. Solidcore fell 1.5% and, as we wrote yesterday, is now likely to consolidate near current levels amid the announcement of a share buyback at $11.6.
FX. USDKZT is showing a strong move lower today — the dollar is down to 450 tenge, which can already confidently be called a break of the support level. The next level is in the 445–446 tenge per dollar area.