Our Comments and Expectations
External Background. The S&P 500 lost 0.6% yesterday, reportedly due to negative news from regional banks Zions and Western Alliance, which disclosed issues with problematic loans. Private data (on credit card usage) indicated that U.S. retail sales are slowing down after a strong summer. Federal Reserve governors Christopher Waller and Steven Miran called for a rate cut of a quarter point — Waller by 0.25% and Miran by 0.5% this month. On the geopolitical front, Donald Trump plans to meet with Vladimir Putin “within about two weeks” in Budapest to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.
Bonds. Investors moved into safe-haven assets yesterday, pushing the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield below 4%.
KASE Index. The KASE Index rose 0.5% yesterday. Most stocks closed in positive territory, indicating a recovery after reaching the lower boundaries of their sideways channel. There remains a growth potential of about 1–1.1% to the upper boundaries.
Index Stocks. Four stocks gained more than 1% during yesterday’s session. The biggest increase was seen in Kazatomprom shares — prices followed the trend from the London Stock Exchange and renewed their all-time highs. On the LSE, global depositary receipts also grew by 1.4%. In both cases, the shares continue to show a stable upward trend. The company continues to report an expected uranium shortage by 2030 — this time in a briefing to President Tokayev. Kazatomprom notes that uranium demand will grow due to the active development of artificial intelligence technologies and the increasing energy consumption of data centers.
We also observed a notable rise in Halyk Bank GDRs, which reached $27.7 during the session — slightly above key resistance levels. Although this was a modest attempt, the stock has a chance to break through and renew its historical highs. On KASE, Halyk’s shares still lag behind LSE levels, with about 5% upside remaining to reach similar resistance around 380 tenge. Air Astana shares rose by 1.5%; however, as we mentioned earlier, until prices break the key levels of 830–840 tenge, the current movement can be viewed as a minor fluctuation within the medium- to long-term trend. Notably, trading volumes, which were high in the previous session, dropped to 13.2 million tenge yesterday. On the LSE, the stock closed unchanged.
The main decliner of the day was Bank CenterCredit. The stock remains under pressure from a local downtrend line and has shown growth in only two of the last fifteen sessions. On Nasdaq, Kaspi ADS continued to decline.
Currency. The U.S. dollar weakened to 535.6 tenge yesterday, once again approaching the medium-term ascending trend line on the USDKZT chart. This morning, we are already seeing an attempt to break below it, which could signal further strengthening of the national currency following the recent rate hike. We’re watching closely.