Our comments and expectations
External backdrop. On Thursday, the S&P 500 fell 4.4%, the Nasdaq 5.5%, and the Dow Jones 3.4%. For the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, this was the largest single-day decline since April 2025. The main selling pressure was in tech: the SOX semiconductor index lost 12.2%, Nvidia about 9%, and AMD and Micron roughly 17% each. Investors fear that following the Democrats’ victory in the midterm elections, regulation of data-center construction will tighten. An additional negative factor was Qualcomm’s results: smartphone-chip sales came in below expectations. These events intensified already existing doubts about payback and fell by 0.4%. The yield on 10-year USTs dropped 5 bps to 4.84%, gold rose 1.0% to $4 113.5 per ounce. Brent crude rebounded 3.9% to $98.29 per barrel after the prior day’s slump. The catalyst was fresh reports of tanker attacks in the Middle East, reigniting concerns about supply security. According to Reuters, the market also reacted to the lack of changes in Iran’s stance regarding talks with the U.S. On Friday morning, the sell-off continued in Asia. South Korea’s KOSPI and Japan’s Nikkei 225 are down a combined 6%. TSMC shares in Taiwan hit the daily down limit. S&P 500 futures are stable.
KASE Index. The KASE Index fell 0.8% to 7856.23 points, snapping a two-day rise. Eight of the ten stocks in the representative list closed in the red. The main drag came from Kazatomprom, while support was provided by Kaspi.kz and Kazakhtelecom. The large-scale sell-off in the U.S. unfolded after the end of the main KASE session and is setting a negative tone for today’s trading. At today’s open, the index is slipping to 7830 points, slightly below the lower boundary of the channel in which quotes had been moving since the start of October. This creates risks of a breakdown and further declines, or a shift into a sideways trend slightly above the 7800-point level.
Index constituents. Kazatomprom lost 4.4% to 27 700 tenge, erasing the prior session’s gain. In London, its GDRs fell much more modestly—down 0.7% to $59.60. Taking the USDKZT exchange rate into account, the premium of local shares to the receipts narrowed from about 6.8% to 3.1%. No separate confirmed corporate trigger has been found for such a sharp drop; however, most likely the decline is linked to weakness in the U.S. tech sector, with which Kazatomprom shares are currently showing correlation. In sector news, there were clarifications on the strategic uranium reserve: the Atomic Energy Agency reported targets of 100 thousand tonnes by 2040 and 150 thousand tonnes by 2050. Part of the reserve is expected to be formed from explored reserves, with the remainder coming from new deposits. Kaspi.kz on the local market rose 1.0% to 42 700 tenge; however, later its U.S. ADS lost 4.0% and again failed to realize technical signals for growth amid an unstable external backdrop. During the Nasdaq session, the price dipped below the 200-day average, falling as much as 6.7%, but was then partially bought back. By the close, the stock returned to the range between the 200- and 50-day moving averages.
Currency. USDKZT slipped below 451 tenge by the end of yesterday’s session, and today the dollar continues to weaken to 448.8 tenge. A possible trigger is the recovery in oil prices, although the dollar itself also strengthened in global markets. Today the pair may test the support level slightly below 448 tenge.