Our comments and expectations
External background. The S&P 500 rose 0.4% in 2 trading sessions. If we look at the dynamics of trading since the end of October 2023, we see that the main US stock index has formed a clear growing trend (as well as KASE). On Thursday, quotes reached highs, but on Friday they fell by 0.65%, led by the technical sector, so separately, the NASDAQ correction turned out to be deeper – by 1.16%. The employment report showed that the economy continues to create jobs, but without wage growth (which is good against inflation). The number of jobs in the non-agricultural sector increased by 275,000 last month after a downward revision of 167,000 compared to the previous two months. The unemployment rate rose to a two-year high of 3.9%. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 rose markedly on Thursday and showed neutral results on Friday. Christine Lagarde said officials may be able to mitigate PREP in June. Fitch upgraded Turkey's rating to B+ with a positive outlook. In the morning, quotes on Asian markets show mixed dynamics. The Hang Seng is up 1.35% while Japan's Nikkei 225 is down 2.2%. China's consumer price index rose last month for the first time since August, exceeding expectations by 0.7% year-on-year as the Lunar New Year boosted spending. But the producer price index fell by 2.7%, which was higher than forecast. Oil remains in a sideways trend around the $82 mark. Hedge funds have cut their bearish bets on U.S. crude to the lowest level in five months after OPEC+ extended supply cuts.
Bonds. The yield of 10-year US bonds fell to 4.07% in 2 sessions, breaking down the 5-day average. Corporate bonds showed modest growth.
The KASE index. KASE grew by another 0.6% last Thursday. It is noteworthy that the quotes broke the downward divergence on the daily chart, due to which some bearish scenarios of the index movement did not materialize.
Index shares. The biggest jump on Thursday was for Kaztransoil, which grew by 3.5% after the publication of the report for 2023, where the company showed a 65% increase in net profit compared to 2022. Kaspi grew by 2.9%, but the ADS picture indicates the start of a slowdown in growth due to pressing technical indicators. Kazatomprom showed a noticeable growth of 5.9% on the LSE. Since the growth was not accompanied by strong news except for the change of 1 member of the board, it can be assumed that the rebound occurred on a technical basis – the quotes were near the lower boundary of the ascending channel and pushed off from it. Nevertheless, further growth may be restrained by the 50-day moving average and the general decline in quotations of uranium companies on the charts of Global X Uranium and Sprott Uranium Miners funds.
Currency. The dollar continued to decline against the tenge on Friday and reached the 445 mark. Recall that the lows of January are in the region of 444 tenge. Today, a slight increase has been noticed – USDKZT is trading at 446.7 tenge.
Key market news
(+) KZTO: KazTransOil JSC reports financial results for 2023