Macro and Politics
Tacirler Investment
* TURKSTAT will release February Industrial Production (IP) figures today @ 10:00 local time. The Istanbul Chamber of Industry (ICI) manufacturing PMI, which averaged 47.73 in 4Q24, showed little change in 1Q25, averaging 47.87. In this context, we expect IP in the first quarter of this year to mirror the performance seen in 4Q24. Given the reduction in working days in February, there may be a slight negative impact on IP, though we do not anticipate any significant change in the main trend in 1Q25 compared to the previous quarter.
* The CBT will release weekly foreign portfolio flows, money & banking statistics, and international reserves for the period of March 28 – April 4 @ 14:30 local time. Based on our calculations upon the CBT’s analytical balance sheet, we estimate that during the week of March 28 – April 4, the net international reserves slumped by USD6bn to USD50.1bn and the gross FX reserves slid by USD2.2bn to USD154.4bn. We anticipate that today’s official reserve data will likely reflect a similar trend in line with our calculations. To recall the data from the previous week: During the period of March 21 – 28, the equity and the bond market (excluding repo transactions) experienced net foreign outflows of USD652mn and USD2.4bn, respectively, while the substantial foreign outflow observed in the bond market during this period marked the largest foreign sale. Besides, the foreigners’ share in total bond stock tumbled from %7.6 to 6.8%, which stands for the lowest level since August 2024. Moreover, residents’ FX deposits dropped by USD554mn (excluding gold accounts and adjusted for the EUR/USD parity effect) after three weeks of consecutive rises, while their total FX deposits (including gold, price adjusted) retreated by USD383mn during the week of March 21 – 28. Lastly, during the week of March 21 – 28, the CBT’s the gross FX reserves slid by USD6.6bn to USD156.7bn and the net international reserves decreased by USD6bn to USD56bn. Total swap stock climbed by USD8.5bn to USD18.3bn, while net reserves excluding swaps tumbled further by USD14.5bn to USD37.7bn.