The Astana International Exchange (AIX) provides its monthly overview of market activity for September 2021.
Trading volume on AIX
The total trading volume on AIX in September 2021 was 20,718,873 USD, 71.2% up from the previous month. The activity on the AIX exchange continues to grow – from January to September 2021, the trading volume has increased 3.7 times compared to the trading volume for the same period last year.
Issuers, brokers, accounts
As of the end of September 2021, 108 listings of securities from 64 different issuers were included in the AIX official list, including 2 ETFs (Exchange traded funds) and 15 ETNs (Exchange traded notes). AIX trading members are 18 Kazakhstani and 11 international brokers. More than 148 thousand investor accounts have been opened at the AIX Central Securities Depository.
In September, Freedom Finance IUIF Fixed Income USD Exchange Traded Notes linked to the performance of the local interval unit investment fund have been listed on AIX. These notes are issued by a Special Purpose Company (“SPC”) – FF IUIF Fixed Income USD SPC Limited, whose sole assets are units in an interval unit investment fund “Fixed Income USD.
In addition to the currently traded instruments, two exchange notes linked to the AIX Qazaq Index (AIXQI) were listed on the AIX in September, in cooperation with Halyk Finance: a) AIX Qazaq Index (QZP) – exchange traded note with a passive investment approach, investing substantially all its assets in Kazakhstani equities in weights determined by AIX Qazaq Index; and, b) AIX Qazaq Index Active (QZA) – actively managed investment vehicle intended to outperform the AIXQI by taking the momentum and adopting an opportunistic approach.
At the end of September, the total market capitalization of the companies listed on AIX (Kazatomprom, Polymetal, Halyk Bank, Ferro-Alloy Resources Limited, CenterCredit Bank, Kaspi.kz, Kcell) exceeded 44 billion USD.
AIXQI Index
September was marked by high volatility for the AIXQI index – on September 15, the index value reached a record high of 1103.29 points due to a significant increase in Kazatomprom shares (by 23.28%) against the backdrop of a rally in uranium prices.
However, the index failed to gain a foothold at this level and lost some of the gained ground in the latter half of the month., the reasons for which were the subsequent correction in the uranium market, the general negative sentiment in the stock markets in connection with the Federal Reserve’s plans to gradually roll back the quantitative easing (QE) program and a significant decrease in Polymetal (by 15.06%) and Central Asia Metal (by 10.63%) share prices caused by the energy crisis in China. Amid rising energy prices, investors tend to exit industries vulnerable to electricity shortages, leading to a global decline in non-ferrous metal producers’ shares. At the same time, the rise in oil prices had a positive effect on KazTransOil share price , which increased by 5.2%.
Shares of banking sector companies included in the AIXQI index changed without significant dynamics – Kaspi (by 6.53%) and Halyk Bank (by 2.09%) decreased, while CenterCredit Bank increased by 2.49%. Kazakhtelecom also noted growth – quotations increased by 2.21%. Having started September at 1,034.42 points, AIXQI ended the month at 1,031.61 points, showing a slight decrease of 0.27% in September.
