Our Comments and Expectations
External Background: The S&P 500 held a shortened session and saw growth during the day. The index map on Finviz.com turned mostly green, with no notable declines in stocks. Among mega-cap companies, Tesla saw the largest gain—7.4%. Semiconductor company Broadcom rose 3.15% after news that the Biden administration had started an investigation into Chinese-made chips. Markets are considering yesterday’s growth as the start of the "Santa Claus Rally." Citigroup expects that in the first quarter of 2025, there will be more opportunities in defensive sectors. Citi strategists are betting on media, internet, and semiconductor stocks, while also increasing their exposure to the software sector. Today, the U.S. market is closed in observance of Christmas. On Thursday, the market will be looking for data on initial jobless claims in the U.S. In Asia, only Hong Kong's Hang Seng index is showing significant growth, rising 1.1%. Reuters reports that China plans to triple its issuance of special bonds to a record $411 billion in 2025 to boost consumption and defend against expected U.S. tariffs. Oil has risen to $73.6, staying close to its 50-day moving average and within a broad triangle pattern.
Bonds: The yield on 10-year U.S. government bonds remained unchanged yesterday, closing around 4.59%. Corporate bonds saw some gains, but are still near their local lows.
KASE Index: The KASE index closed slightly down. We expect today’s trading session to be calm, with a modest increase likely driven by GDRs, which rose on the LSE yesterday. If the "Santa Claus Rally" continues on Western markets, we expect the KASE index to recover most of the positions it lost earlier.
Index Stocks: The biggest decline yesterday was in Kazatomprom’s stocks. Since these stocks have the second-largest weight in the index—14.1% (compared to 15.9% for Halyk Bank)—their fall had the biggest impact on the index. However, the company’s GDRs rose by 1.3% after the shares fell to their lowest point since October 25. On the LSE, Halyk Bank’s GDRs also surged by 3.8%. Overall, the technical picture remains unchanged, but it confirmed that the support level is around $18. Air Astana seems to be starting another wave of correction. Since September, its stocks have been in a wide sideways trend, with periods of growth followed by declines.
Currency: The tenge has strengthened against the dollar for the third consecutive session. The DXY index has remained largely unchanged, so the main influence likely comes from the ruble, which is trading below 100 to the dollar due to the tax period. However, the local picture remains ambiguous: the ruble is approaching its resistance level, and today the tax period reaches its peak. It’s likely that we will see a slight weakening of the ruble and a corresponding correction of the tenge, but without breaching the 525 tenge level.