Page 70 - bne_Magazine_May_2018_print

70 I New Europe in Numbers bne May 2018
Turkey BIST-100 stock market index
After a skyrocketing 2017 Istanbul stock exchange may be in for a trend reversal
The Istanbul stock exchange’s benchmark BIST-100 index has lost as much as 10% since the end of January. The index saw its historically highest level of 121,531.5 during intra-day trading hours of January 29 before gradually descending to a 2018 trough to date of 106.624 during intra-day hours on April 11.
The index lost a chunky 5% from the April 6 closing price of 114,738 to the April 11 closing price of 109,253. Some $20bn was thus erased from the value of Turkey’s equities. The rapid depreciation of the Turkish
lira (TRY) amid investor anxiety over economic imbalances, rising geopolitical risks linked to the fraught situation that has developed over conflict-torn Syria and signs that conglomerates are struggling to pay their debts have all weighed on stocks.
Polish inflation slowdown confirmed as CPI expands just 1.3% y/y in March
Poland's consumer price index grew 1.3% y/y in March, slowing down 0.1pp against the annual growth rate seen in the preceding month, statistics office GUS announced on April 13.
The slowdown in inflation will only entrench the Monetary Policy Council (MPC) in its dovish position. Despite predictions that demand pressures in the economy and rising costs of labour are set to push inflation close to rate setters’ red line of 2.5%, a reverse process is currently underway. March was the third consecutive month in which inflation slowed down.
Russian inflation inches up to 2.4% in March
Consumer prices in Russia rose by 0.3% month-on-month in March 2018, in line with previously observed weekly inflation dynamics and bring- ing the annual inflation rate to 2.4% versus 2.2% seen in February.
The nadir of the recent post-Soviet low inflation has probably passed. The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) expects inflation to end this year at around 4% and the small rise in inflation in March was not a surprise.
E-commerce dramatically eats into foot traffic at Moscow’s leading shopping malls
E-commerce has dramatically eaten into the foot traffic at Moscow’s leading shopping malls in the first months of this year as Russians increasingly move online to buy everything from sugar to shoes, according to the latest Watcom Shopping Index.
The index showed a jump in foot traffic in the run up to the holiday season in December. The week just before the New Year’s Day holidays had an index score of over 605, which was better than the 2016 result (578.63), but still behind the results of the previous two years (620.25 in 2015 and 629.6 in 2014). However, since then the results for the first 14 weeks of 2018 have been well below all the results for the last four years, dropping to a low of 434 at the end of January, its lowest level since the index was launched.
Polish CPI, annual change in %
Watcom Russian shopping index
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Index y/y change in % BIST-100