KASE continues to grow

On Friday, the major U.S. indices updated their historical highs after the weekend, supported by labor market data. Statistics show that job growth slightly slowed in June alongside wage increases, while unemployment rose to 4.1%, the highest in 2.5 years. This has increased the market probability of a rate cut by the Fed in September from 66% to 79%. On Monday, U.S. indices continued to rise, albeit at a slower pace, once again setting records. Markets are now awaiting Powell's comments in Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday, which will likely clarify the Fed's current stance. Investors will also be looking for consumer inflation data on Thursday. In Europe, however, the positive sentiment from the U.S. did not spread, as the Stoxx 600 index fell slightly for two consecutive days. The main factor for this is the political instability in France, which, although resolved on Sunday, still did not have a positive impact on the markets on Monday, considering the victory of the left. In the morning, Asian markets saw the Nikkei in Japan rise by almost 2%, while the Hong Kong Hang Seng increased by 0.2%.

Bonds.
The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries is at 4.284% this morning, with the bonds trading neutrally. Although the yield fell by 6.5 basis points on Friday, it has started another wave of local decline.

KASE Index.
The KASE rose by another 0.6% on Friday after a decent 1% increase on Thursday. To some extent, the overall rise in the index is influenced by the weakening of the tenge through the growth of tenge-denominated stocks listed abroad and/or generating export revenue, as well as internal fundamental and technical factors.

Index Stocks.
The leader on the last trading day was BCC shares, which broke out of consolidation and reached multi-year highs, increasing by 3.6%. Today, we are likely to see another day of decent growth for the bank's shares. Kazakhtelecom and Kazatomprom also showed good growth. While the growth of Kazatomprom is clear and occurs against the backdrop of the weakening tenge, the rise of Kazakhtelecom is likely happening on expectations of potential special dividends. Recall that the company previously sold its subsidiary, Mobile Telecom-Service, for $1.1 billion, which increases the likelihood of dividend payments to shareholders, similar to what happened in 2012 after the sale of Kcell. Kazatomprom did not show growth on the LSE on Friday, and yesterday, during the working day for the rest of the world, it even dropped by 2.4%. A similar story occurred with Air Astana's GDRs, which fell in price by 1.95% on Monday. Thus, a slight decline in the share prices of these companies can be expected today.

Currency.
On Friday, the dollar briefly rose to 480 tenge and continues its ascent this morning. However, the morning rise is still rather sluggish, and the dollar is at a resistance level of 479.8 tenge. Therefore, in our opinion, the space for further dollar growth is limited and requires a strong separate trigger.