Last week Turkey's central bank returned to its old ways, holding its one-week repo rate at 10.25% and, instead, hiking its late liquidity lending rate. As Patrick Curran identifies in his research, the lack of transparency and predictability in Turkey’s multiple rate system gives markets little confidence that rate increases will be sticky, and runs counter to urging from the market and IMF to move towards a simplified policy regime based on a single policy rate. The lira sell-off is a vote of no confidence in the bank's current rate policy. Get the full story →

Armenia and Azerbaijan had agreed to a new ceasefire after foreign ministers of both countries met US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington for intense negotiations on a truce, which came into effect on Monday. Biden has criticised Trump for disengagement with the conflict and the ceasefire could have been seen as a foreign policy win for Trump right before the elections. Russia had driven mediation efforts until now, but the two ceasefires Moscow brokered did not hold. The dispute has raised fears that Turkey and Russia could be drawn into a wider conflict. Azerbaijan has the implicit backing of Turkey, but we don't think Turkey can afford to be dragged into a war. Get the full story →

According to the FT, the Independent Petroleum Association of America has launched an ESG Center, which will advise companies on building effective ESG programmes. Members of the association include large oil companies and is better known for endorsing the Trump administration’s environmental rollbacks. With the climate crisis becoming central to investors decision-making, we discuss how ESG could change the nature of the EM and frontier debt market over the next decade. Get the full story →

Saudi Arabia's Tadawul index fell 4.1% on Sunday, as results from the likes of Al-Rajhi Bank and SABIC weighed on sentiment. Our view is that Saudi Arabia is not a risk-off safe-haven. Within the GCC, our preferred market is Qatar. Get the full story →

Activists surrounded churches and disrupted masses across Poland on Sunday to protest the almost complete ban of abortion in the country. This unrest comes as Poland is now gripped by a surge in Covid-19 cases – having successfully avoided the worst of the first wave. Poland's economy has held up well until now, but ING forecasts another decline in 4Q, with GDP growth for all of 2020 falling between -2.9% and -3.5% yoy. Get the full story →