The Week Ahead: Panic Gives Way to Fatigue, All Eyes on Friday's Payrolls

Good Sunday to everyone,

The second act of the crisis played out at Borsa Istanbul last week, but with less noise. After the previous week's 8.18% collapse, the BIST 100 closed the 21-25 September week down 2.9% at 12,888 points, slipping below even the crisis-day close of 16 September. This time the selling was not broad-based: the BIST 30 fell only 1.49% and the banking index 0.86%, while the leasing and factoring index lost 8.34%. Pressure, in other words, stayed concentrated in the low-liquidity financial names where fund portfolios are clustered; transport was the week's only clear winner, up 0.98%. On the regulatory side, the most important decision was the CMB's move to raise the maximum period for liquidating fund assets and paying investors from three months to six. That decision reads two ways: investors will wait longer for their money, but the market learned that forced selling will be spread across six months, so no one-off supply shock is coming. On the investigation front, the assets of 46 legal entities, 18 funds and 42 individuals were frozen, the number of detentions rose to 51, and towards the weekend Tera Portföy Chairman Erdin Özel was detained. Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz repeated the message that "the problem is temporary". In FX, USD/TRY ended the week 0.26% higher at 48.89 and EUR/TRY 0.69% lower at 55.63 on the cross rate — so the crisis did not spill into the currency, but the cost of that showed up in reserves: the CBRT's gross reserves fell $4.3 billion to $174.4 billion in the week of 18 September, and net reserves fell $6.4 billion to $55.8 billion.

Abroad, it was the first genuine "risk appetite" week in months. The Trump–Xi summit held in Washington on 24 September produced no comprehensive agreement, but the trade truce set to expire in November was extended to 10 January 2027, and the two countries agreed on preferential tariffs covering $30 billion of non-sensitive goods each way. The same week, the US and Iran discussed a framework for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and phasing out the naval blockade; that news pulled oil lower intraday and halted the climb in bond yields, allowing Wall Street to close higher for the first time in three weeks. The S&P 500 rose 0.6% and the Nasdaq 100 2.1%, while the Dow Jones stayed negative for a fourth week — a divergence that shows the market rotating out of rate-sensitive and cyclical names into technology. The fragile part of the picture is in bonds: the US 10-year yield tested 5.135%, its highest since July 2007, and the 30-year rose to 5.43%. Friday evening's headline that "Trump rejected Iran's seven-day plan" pushed diplomacy back into deadlock. This week the calendar is busy enough on its own: core PCE on Wednesday, payrolls and euro area inflation on Friday, and the CBRT Monetary Policy Summary at home on Monday.

Macroeconomics · Geopolitics · Global

1 Week two of the fund crisis: the panic is gone, the uncertainty remains. After the first week's circuit-breaker-triggering selloff, trading normalised somewhat this week; the BIST 100's weekly loss narrowed to 2.9% and intraday swings compressed. The critical development was the CMB's 20 September bulletin extending the liquidation window from three months to six. The 131 funds belonging to Tera, Pusula, Hedef, Atlas, A1 Capital, Pardus and Bulls Portföy fall within this scope; the number of retail investors directly affected was announced as 455,758. The extension allows the low-liquidity stocks in those portfolios to reach the market in a more controlled way; against that, the wait lengthens for investors whose money is frozen, and that is a cost that delays the repair of confidence in the fund industry. The real indicator to watch in the coming weeks will be the path of total fund size on TEFAS and the flow in and out of money market funds.

2 Reserves: the bill for intervention is now clear. The CBRT's data for the week of 18 September formalised the scale of FX sales during the crisis week: gross reserves fell $4.3 billion to $174.4 billion and net reserves fell $6.4 billion to $55.8 billion. The previous week had already seen a $5.5 billion decline; so roughly $10 billion left gross reserves over two weeks. The currency holding at 48.89, up just 0.26% on the week, is the result of that intervention. The picture shows that currency stability is being bought with reserves, and that the sustainability of that cost depends on how quickly the fund crisis cools. The CBRT's next rate-setting meeting is on 22 October; until then, swap channels and liquidity management remain the primary tools.

3 The Trump–Xi summit: the truce was extended, the disputes stayed put. The summit held in Washington on 24 September was the two leaders' first meeting on US soil in 11 years. The outcome was limited but sufficient for markets: the trade truce due to expire in November was extended to 10 January 2027, a recommendation was adopted for preferential tariffs on $30 billion of non-sensitive goods each way, and China agreed to increase coal imports from the US. No progress was made on the real points of contention — rare earth elements, technology export restrictions and Taiwan. Trump said afterwards that the two would meet again in China in November. For global supply chains this amounts to "crisis postponed"; for intermediate-goods importers such as Türkiye, it means tariff uncertainty is deferred another quarter.

4 Bond yields remain the main risk heading. The US 10-year yield touched 5.135% during the week, testing its highest level since July 2007; the 2-year at 4.947% and the 30-year at 5.43% similarly approached multi-year peaks. The climb has two sources: high oil prices feeding inflation expectations, and weak bond auctions. On Friday, yields pulled back somewhat as oil eased, and equities recovered on the back of it — a correlation that shows the bond market is the variable that will set the direction of equities in the period ahead. Goldman Sachs expects one more Fed hike in December in its year-end forecasts. A high-yield environment also builds a framework that makes flows into emerging market assets harder; that external pressure continues to weigh on Türkiye's risk premium and bond yields.

5 Oil: swinging between diplomacy and geopolitics. Brent ended the week up roughly 2% in the $105-106 band, but beneath that clean number lies a violent ebb and flow. Mid-week, news that the US and Iran were discussing a phased exit plan in New York covering the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a gradual lifting of the blockade pulled prices down; on Friday, Brent fell around another 1% intraday. But when it emerged on 26 September that Trump had rejected the seven-day plan Iran proposed, the process returned to deadlock. Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia from Yemen also continue. For Türkiye, oil above $100 means double pressure through the current account and inflation channels; any news of a durable agreement would be the most powerful positive shock available to an energy-importing economy.

6 Profit-taking in gold and silver. Spot gold ended the week down roughly 2% around $4,270; hawkish messages from Fed officials and a stronger dollar triggered profit-taking after the record attempt of previous weeks. The decline was sharper in silver: the ounce pulled back to $63 and, domestically, gram silver fell to 99 lira. In the local market, gram gold in the Grand Bazaar fell 1.61% on the week to 6,716 lira and the Republic coin 1.33% to 43,860 lira — the limited rise in the currency kept the lira-denominated decline below the drop in the ounce. For the technical side of gold's retreat, see the Technical Picture section; on the macro side it is enough to say that in an environment of rising real rates, the opportunity cost of holding a non-yielding asset increases.

7 Crypto diverged again, but momentum is slowing. Bitcoin ended the week up 3.3% at $83,906, bringing its three-month return to 41%. Against that, it fell 3.1% over the last five days and stalled without approaching its one-month peak of $87,396. The crypto sentiment index sits at 74, in "greed" territory — meaning positioning is clustered on the optimistic side, a structure that leaves it open to sharp reversals in the short term. With the one-year return still at -23.5%, this advance remains a recovery from the 2025 peaks. October is historically Bitcoin's strongest month (average return 16.2%, win rate 80%); that seasonality will be the main talking point in the weeks ahead.

8 The Fed's roadmap and the monetary policy backdrop. After the Fed delivered its first rate increase since 2023 the previous week, taking the policy rate to 4%, messages from officials this week kept the hawkish tone. Chair Kevin Warsh's framing — that inflation remains the central bank's dominant concern — is shaping how markets price December. Institutional forecasts are converging in the same direction. In Europe, ECB Governing Council member Isabel Schnabel drew attention to upside inflation risks from energy prices; euro area September flash CPI is expected to rise from 3.2% to 3.5%. The global monetary policy cycle, in other words, has broken completely from the easing expectations of 2024-2025 and moved to the tightening side. For lira assets that means a long-running external headwind through both the capital flow and valuation channels.

Sectors

1 Leasing and factoring: the pressure carries into a third week. The sector index closed the week down 8.34%, the worst-performing group for a second consecutive week. In these stocks — where fund portfolios are concentrated and free float and depth are low — selling pressure now looks spread over a longer period as the liquidation timetable has lengthened. Rather than the index level, what should be watched is whether daily trading volume in individual names returns to normal; a recovery in volume would be the earliest signal that market makers and the buy side have come back.

2 Banking: getting through the crisis by diverging. The banking index's weekly loss was contained at 0.86%, a marked positive divergence against the BIST 100's 2.9% decline. The BRSA decision exempting repurchased shares from capital calculations, and the perception that banks' direct exposure to the fund crisis is limited, both contributed to that resilience. Even so, the scale of loans extended to portfolio management companies and affiliated group firms will be the item to look for in third-quarter balance sheet footnotes. The Q3 financials due at the end of October and the start of November will be the first official source showing the true size of that exposure.

3 Transport and defensive groups stood out. The week's only clear sector winner was transport, up 0.98%. That transport names diverged positively despite oil staying above $100 suggests investors took shelter in highly liquid names with FX revenue that are not concentrated in fund portfolios. The same logic shows in the BIST 30 losing less than the BIST 100: the crisis has deepened the divergence between large, liquid stocks and small and mid-caps. The closing of that gap would be the most concrete indicator that the market has normalised.

4 The PMI threshold on the industrial front. Türkiye's ISO manufacturing PMI stood at 48.1 in August, meaning industry is in contraction. Thursday's September reading will show how industry performed under high oil prices, tight financial conditions and the confidence shock of the past two weeks. Wednesday's August trade balance, meanwhile, will quantify the effect of the energy bill on the current account; with oil above $100, the path of the import bill is decisive for year-end current account deficit forecasts.

Companies

1 The legal process in the fund investigation deepened. Over the week the assets of 46 legal entities, 18 funds and 42 individuals were frozen; the number of people detained in the investigation coordinated by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office reached 51. Towards the weekend, Tera Portföy Chairman Erdin Özel was detained. These developments keep stock-level volatility alive through KAP disclosures and possible injunction decisions at listed companies tied to the group. The critical distinction for investors is between an investigation that stays confined to the portfolio management companies and one that spreads to the operations of group companies; for now, official statements support the first scenario.

2 The US earnings calendar is getting heavier. This week brings Carnival (29 September), Micron, Conagra, FactSet and Jabil (30 September), followed by Nike, Accenture and McCormick (1 October). Micron will be the week's most critical release for Nasdaq momentum, as the most direct read on how AI infrastructure demand is feeding through to memory prices. Nike will offer a reading on the US consumer's appetite for durable goods in an environment of high inflation and rising rates. Constellation Brands (6 October), PepsiCo (8 October) and Delta (9 October) spill into the following week.

3 Buybacks and dividend decisions as a support. In a crisis environment, share buyback programmes have become one of the mechanisms supporting prices; a REIT's decision at the weekend to repurchase 15 million lots was the latest example of the trend. The BRSA's capital exemption for banks works in the same direction. That said, buybacks consume balance sheet cash, so their sustainability depends on a company's cash position; the gap between announced programmes and actual purchases should be tracked through KAP filings.

4 The IPO pipeline has effectively stopped. With the CMB's agenda shifted entirely to the fund crisis, no new IPO approvals are expected and the existing calendar is suspended. The CMB's criminal complaint against 11 people over transactions in Özata Denizcilik also shows the regulator extending its manipulation oversight to headings beyond the fund crisis. In market structure terms this means a period in which speculative moves in low-volume stocks are being deterred in the short run, and supervisory confidence is being repaired over the medium term.

The Week Ahead: The Data Calendar Takes the Wheel Again

For the past two weeks prices moved on news flow; this week the data calendar takes back the wheel. Globally, two dates are decisive: US core PCE inflation on Wednesday and the nonfarm payrolls report on Friday. Pricing for whether the Fed hikes again in December will come out of those two releases; strong employment and sticky core inflation would make bond yields above 5% durable and increase pressure on emerging market assets. Weak prints would instead lay the ground for a continuation of last week's equity recovery. At home there is the CBRT Monetary Policy Summary on Monday, the economic confidence index on Tuesday, unemployment and trade on Wednesday, and the ISO manufacturing PMI on Thursday. September CPI falls not in this week but on Monday 5 October. On the fund crisis, news flow rather than the calendar will remain decisive: the course of the investigation, the functioning of the liquidation programme and TEFAS data are what to watch.

The Week's Calendar

Monday 28 September — CBRT September Monetary Policy Summary. Weekly money and banking statistics (14:30). Dallas Fed manufacturing index in the US. The BIST open will price in weekend developments in the fund investigation.

Tuesday 29 September — TurkStat September economic confidence index (10:00). US Conference Board consumer confidence (17:00 TRT, consensus 90.0). Carnival earnings.

Wednesday 30 September — TurkStat August unemployment rate and August trade balance (10:00). US final Q2 GDP (consensus 1.6% annualised) and core PCE inflation (consensus +0.3% monthly) (15:30 TRT). German flash September CPI. China official manufacturing and services PMIs. Micron, Conagra, FactSet and Jabil earnings.

Thursday 1 October — ISO Türkiye manufacturing PMI (10:00, previous 48.1). Euro area final manufacturing PMI. US ISM manufacturing PMI (17:00 TRT, consensus 54.8) and weekly jobless claims. Nike, Accenture and McCormick earnings.

Friday 2 October — US September nonfarm payrolls and unemployment rate (15:30 TRT; consensus +100K and 4.2%). Euro area September flash CPI (consensus 3.5% annual). Month-start fuel and natural gas price adjustments also fall on this day.

Further ahead — TurkStat September inflation on Monday 5 October at 10:00. S&P Global Ratings' Türkiye review on 16 October, Scope Ratings on 23 October. The CBRT rate-setting meeting is on 22 October.

Five Things to Watch

1 Friday's US employment report. Consensus is a 100,000 gain in September with the unemployment rate rising from 4.1% to 4.2%. This release will form the backbone of pricing for the Fed's December meeting. A payroll gain well above consensus could push the 10-year yield, already at 5.13%, back to its peak and strengthen the dollar; that combination works against emerging market currencies and gold. A weak report would do the opposite, building a framework that supports last week's equity recovery.

2 Core PCE inflation. Core PCE, the measure against which the Fed defines its target, is expected to rise 0.3% on the month. The effect of high oil prices on headline inflation is already known; the real question is how far that effect has passed into the core. A reading above consensus would strengthen the "inflation is turning sticky" thesis and sharpen the odds of a December hike. A reading in line with or below consensus would open room for the scenario in which the Fed's hiking cycle stops at a single step.

3 The CBRT Monetary Policy Summary and the path of reserves. In Monday's text, markets will watch whether the emphasis on a "tight stance" is retained and whether any framework is given for liquidity management after the fund crisis. Alongside that, Thursday's weekly reserve data will show whether FX sales continued into the week of 25 September. Roughly $10 billion leaving gross reserves over two weeks lays bare the cost of currency stability; a slowdown in those outflows would be one of the most reliable indicators of normalisation.

4 The functioning of the liquidation and TEFAS data. Extending the liquidation window to six months spread forced-selling pressure over time, but it did not remove the uncertainty. The concrete data to watch is total fund size on TEFAS and the balance of flows in and out of money market funds. Whether money leaving the fund industry goes into deposits, directly into equities or into crypto will determine the composition of liquidity in the months ahead. Retail account numbers and Takasbank foreign custody ratios will answer the same question from different angles.

5 Oil and Hormuz diplomacy. Talks between the US and Iran on a phased exit plan continue, but the process has jammed again with Trump's rejection of the seven-day plan Iran proposed. A concrete understanding on reopening the strait could trigger a rapid pullback in oil below $100, which would markedly improve both global inflation expectations and Türkiye's current account outlook. Conversely, Houthi attacks targeting Saudi infrastructure again, or a complete breakdown in diplomacy, could put $110 and above back on the agenda.

Technical Picture

SPY (S&P 500 ETF) — Last close $771.35 (25 September); the model summary, dated 25 August, carries a spot of $765.91 and a key level of $779.37. The regime has been CHOPPY for 22 weeks, meaning trend strength is weak and price is compressed in a 729-779 band. Clearing resistance at 779.37 would be expected to strengthen upward momentum; slipping below support at 760.4 would make increased downward pressure likely. Price continues to sit above the SMA20, SMA50 and SMA200, with the SMA200 at 708.53 tracked as the long-term floor.

QQQ (Nasdaq 100 ETF) — Last close $744.50; the model summary dated 21 September has spot at $741.47 and a key level of $745.45. A 3.19% weekly gain carried price to the upper edge of the 21-day band, in the 96th percentile, with RSI at 65.7 approaching the overbought boundary. Closes above 745.45 would be expected to sustain upward momentum; a close below 737.62 is tracked as the level that technically invalidates the recovery. September seasonality is negative (-2.79% average) and October positive (+2.74%) — the seasonal turn arrives this week.

Gold (XAU/USD) — The model summary dated 21 September has spot at $4,343.81 and a key level of $4,310.61; Friday's close came in below those levels, around $4,270. The 4,310.61 level tracked as support therefore appears to have broken to the downside during the week, and within the model's framework that puts a test down to $4,238 on the agenda. On the upside, resistance at 4,383.62 needs to be cleared. COT data showing managed money extremely long (26% of open interest) is the factor raising the risk of a short-term reversal; against that, October seasonality is historically strong (+2.93% average, 80% win rate).

Bitcoin (BTC/USD) — $83,906 as of 26 September; key level $87,395.67. Price sits 4.2% from its one-month peak and has pulled back 3.1% over the last five days. A close above 87,396 strengthens momentum; a close below 82,814 is tracked as the level triggering the short-term downside scenario. Its position above the SMA20, SMA50 and SMA200 is maintained, with the SMA200 at $71,015. The regime has been QUIET for three weeks with a modelled continuation probability of 77%, meaning a move in the 7-15% band over the next 21 days is considered a reasonable expectation.

BIST 100 — The close at 12,888 points sits below the crisis-day close of 13,122 on 16 September. That means two weeks of selling have not yet technically formed a base. To speak of a recovery, the index first needs to reclaim the 13,100-13,300 band with support from rising volume. Below, 12,817 points — the intraday low of the crisis week — stands as a psychological reference; breaking that level on a closing basis would confirm that selling pressure has carried into a third week.

Closing

The week just past carried the typical features of the "digestion" phase that follows the first shock wave of a crisis: losses continued but with less violence, selling concentrated in the stocks at the centre of the problem rather than spreading broadly, and decisions aimed at buying time were taken on the regulatory side. The CMB's extension of the liquidation window to six months was the most concrete piece of good news for the market; spreading forced selling across six months heads off a one-off supply shock. Against that, roughly $10 billion leaving gross reserves in two weeks is a reminder that currency stability is not free. Banking and the BIST 30 holding up and diverging supports the thesis that the crisis is confined to a particular market segment rather than being systemic — a thesis that will be tested in the third-quarter financials due at the end of October.

The week now beginning takes its agenda from abroad. Core PCE on Wednesday and nonfarm payrolls on Friday will determine pricing for the Fed's December meeting and therefore decide whether US bond yields above 5% are here to stay. That is, on its own, the single most important external variable for emerging market assets. At home, Monday's Monetary Policy Summary and Thursday's reserve data will allow a reading of the CBRT's post-crisis stance. On the fund side, news flow rather than the calendar will remain decisive; the most reliable signal of normalisation should be sought in the recovery of trading volume and fund sizes rather than in the index level.

Methodology note: In this issue, the signal scan (`get_signals`) and asset-level news flow (`get_asset_news`) tools could not be reached during the automated run; model summaries, comparison data and web sources were used in place of the sections that rely on those two. The data dates of the model summaries in the Technical Picture section are given in parentheses and some are a few days older than Friday's close. BIST index and currency figures were taken from web sources; the weekly BIST 100 change was reported between 2.90% and 2.98% depending on the source. This English edition was prepared by the Sunday 13:00 backup run, translated from the Turkish issue published earlier the same day.

This bulletin is not investment advice; it is a data summary.