Obbligazioni valute high yield TURCHIA bond in usd e lira turca

Turkey: despite the downside surprise in July, price dynamics remain subject to upside risks

After a series of upside surprises, inflation finally surprised to the downside in July. The 0.55%m/m rise in headline CPI compared favorably with the market consensus of 1.0% and the JPMorgan forecast of 0.8%. We had the lowest forecast in the Bloomberg survey, so the print must be a downside surprise at least for the analysts. On the other hand, the result came out to be in line with the CBRT’s inflation forecast path as released in the quarterly inflation report. This should have come as a big relief for the CBRT as another upside surprise would have accelerated the credibility erosion.

However, price dynamics are still pretty bad. Yearly CPI inflation has risen to a 14-year high of 15.9% and, given the recent lira weakness and the sharp rise in natural gas prices, it will likely continue rising in the next two months. Furthermore, yearly PPI inflation has reached 25%, manifesting the strength in cost-led price pressures. Perhaps more importantly, although the lower-than-expected July print could, at least temporarily, stop the credibility erosion, the sharp worsening in inflation expectations seen in recent months will likely limit the disinflationary impact of economic slowdown.
.

.
..
.
.


Hence, we are revising up our end-2018 inflation forecast to 14.5% from 13.2%. This increase mainly reflects: 1) the government’s decision to increase the price of natural gas sold to power generators by 50%, a decision that immediately led to a 10% rise in electricity prices; 2) continued lira weakening; and 3) much stronger inflation inertia. We see inflation reaching its cyclical peak at 16.3% in September before slowing to 14.5% in the last two months of the year. We keep the end-2019 forecast unchanged at 9.5%, but this is based on the assumption that a soft landing is engineered. A coordinated effort is needed to rebuild confidence, to stabilize the currency and to engineer this soft landing. In this regard, the medium-term program to be released in early September will be critical.

Although growth has already started to slow, we believe the CBRT still needs to over-tighten to rebuild credibility; we expect a final 125bp hike in the September MPC meeting. One-year-ahead inflation expectations have already risen to 11.1% from 9.2% over the last four months and the July data will most likely not be enough to stop this worsening (Figure 2). Moreover, despite the expected improvement, external balances remain substantial and the lira is vulnerable to shifts in global risk appetite. In this environment, we think the CBRT will need to tighten the policy once again (hopefully for the last time). We then see the CBRT remaining on hold until inflation starts falling in May 2019. If the government comes up with a credible medium-term program and manages to regain credibility, the CBRT could do with a lower rate hike. A hike could be avoided altogether in the bullish scenario where a credible program is accompanied by favorable external environment
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Alto