The market overview was prepared by analysts from the Association of Financial Specialists of Kazakhstan (AFK).
Currency Market By the end of this week, the demand and supply for foreign currency were relatively balanced, resulting in a slight change in the weighted average exchange rate of USD/KZT, which settled at 523.96 tenge per dollar (+0.15 tenge). It is worth noting that a slight deterioration in the commodity market conditions may have had a limited impact on market sentiment due to the ongoing strengthening of the Russian ruble, stable foreign currency supply related to transfers from the National Fund to the budget, and the sale of foreign currency earnings by KGS entities.
In today’s session, the USD/KZT pair (10:22 ALA) is trading at 517.75 tenge per dollar.
Diagram 1. USD/KZT Exchange Rate:
Source: KASE
Money Market Kazakhstan’s money market rates fell on Thursday: TONIA – to 14.57% (-5 b.p.), SWAP – to 10.39% (-49 b.p.). Meanwhile, the trading volume remained low at 0.6 trillion tenge (+34.0 billion). At the same time, 1 trillion tenge was placed in the National Bank's deposits (100% demand) with an annual yield of 15.25%. It is noteworthy that the open position on NBRK operations slightly increased to 6.7 trillion tenge (+0.2 trillion), mainly due to the rise in liquidity withdrawal through deposit auctions.
Stock Market On Thursday, the KASE index closed at a new historical record of 5,624.4 points (+0.46%). Almost the entire increase was provided by representatives of the banking sector – Kaspi (+1.7%) and the National Bank (+0.9%). Investors may have revised their expectations for these securities after the recent increase in the base rate and the publication of strong quarterly results.
Oil Brent crude oil prices closed slightly lower on Thursday at $72.1 per barrel (-0.3%). It is important to note that on Thursday, OPEC+ postponed the planned increase in production by 2.2 million barrels until April, in full accordance with market expectations, to avoid destabilizing the oil market during the current winter period of low demand. Furthermore, restrictions on 1.65 million b/d from several countries will remain in effect until the end of 2026 (previously expected to end by the end of 2025). Nevertheless, these measures were fully reflected in current quotes and did not provide any support to the commodity market.
Risky Assets Following the setting of historical records, key U.S. stock indices fell by 0.2-0.6% on Thursday. Investors are evidently aware of the high market multiples and currently do not see additional growth drivers. In this context, it is important to note that today’s release of labor market data for November may have a significant impact on the last meeting of the Federal Reserve this year (December 17-18). Analysts estimate that the number of new jobs in the U.S. may have increased by 214,000 (+223,000 in October).
Safe-Haven Assets There was a decoupling in risk-free instruments: both gold prices (-0.7%) and the dollar index (-0.6%) fell, largely reflecting the current low interest in safe-haven assets. At the moment, the high-risk cryptocurrency market is attracting the most attention.