Our Comments and Expectations
External Background.
On Friday, the S&P 500 held a shortened session, which ended with almost uninterrupted growth. This rise was driven by investor expectations that Trump would soften his most extreme trade policies. As a result, bond yields and the dollar weakened. November has become the best month of 2024 for the S&P 500, showing a 5.73% increase. According to EPFR Global, investors poured $141 billion into U.S. stocks, the largest inflow over a four-week period in history. Moreover, 2024 could go down as one of the most successful years for markets in this century. On Friday of this week, investors will be looking for the labor market report. According to Bloomberg's survey, the consensus forecast is for the creation of 200,000 jobs with an unemployment rate of 4.1%. Meanwhile, in Europe, the Stoxx 600 index rose by 0.6%, partially recovering after reaching a three-month low earlier this month. Germany's DAX increased by 1% and reached previous record levels. Inflation in the Eurozone exceeded the European Central Bank's (ECB) target of 2%, but the deviation was too small to prevent the regulator from lowering rates. In the morning, Asian markets showed moderate growth in the range of 0.4-0.8%. Oil is trading at $72.2 per barrel.
Bonds.
The yield on U.S. 10-year bonds continued to decrease and reached 4.18% on Friday. However, Trump's statements this morning have lifted it to 4.22%.
KASE Index.
The KASE index had an optimistic session, rising by 0.6% and reaching new historical highs. However, trading volumes fell to their lowest levels since November 26.
Index Stocks.
The largest growth was seen in Kazatomprom's stocks, which reached the upper boundary of the current sideways channel and are generally close to their historical highs in tenge terms. On Thursday, the company released its Q3 report, and its evaluation will be presented later. Meanwhile, we updated our forecast for KMG stocks, raising the target price to 17,600 tenge. Despite the annual decline in quarterly revenue, the company's profitability has increased significantly. EBITDA and margin improved in Q3 due to continued high dividend payouts from joint ventures. Air Astana stocks rose by 1.4% and, seemingly, completed the local downtrend. However, on LSE and Nasdaq, our stocks did not support the KASE dynamics—Halyk Bank, Kaspi, and Air Astana all declined.
Currency.
This morning on the forex market, the tenge fell again against the dollar, reaching 515. It is worth noting that the ruble, which we believe has been one of the "culprits" behind the recent USD/KZT spike, has strengthened against the dollar over the last two sessions, which contradicts the new correlation between the ruble and the tenge. This raises the question: will the tenge strengthen along with the ruble, or was the ruble's strengthening temporary, and will it return to the 110-113 range per dollar? Meanwhile, in December, the sale of $800-900 million for transfers is scheduled.