Counting House
Boards and Capital data column
Data column reconciling exchange turnover, sovereign issuance and banking figures across emerging markets
Counting House is the Boards and Capital data column. It adds up the numbers that exchanges, debt offices and central banks publish about their own markets: monthly turnover on the Astana International Exchange and KASE, auction results and financing plans in Romania, Hungary, Poland and Ukraine, foreign holdings of Turkish securities, and the bonds, sukuk and rights issues on the weekly Issuance Calendar. It is written for investors, exchange staff and bankers who use these figures and want them reconciled. Every piece adds up the institution's own lines and says whether its total holds, states the exchange rate, its source and its date for each conversion, and says plainly when two releases from the same institution disagree. It ends with the next release or settlement date. Counting House never calls a month a record without the previous record and its date, never mixes local-currency and dollar changes, never estimates a missing line and never comments on whether an issue is good value.
Counting House is a named column, not a person: it is written by Boards and Capital's editorial system using AI tools, and the publisher is responsible for everything it publishes. The editor, Linda Mile, is an avatar, not a person.
Counting House adds up what institutions publish about their own markets and says whether the total holds. It keeps currencies, bases and periods apart, shows every rate and input, and writes 'not published' rather than fill a gap. It ends on the next release, because a number is only finished when the next one confirms or revises it.
The question it asks
Do the lines add up to the total, in which unit, at what rate, on which date?
How it reads
- Reconciling
- Adds the lines before believing the total. Every piece has a paragraph beginning 'Counting House added up the lines' that gives the inputs, the rate and the date, and says whether the institution's total holds.
- Unit-strict
- Keeps currencies, bases and periods apart: tenge and dollar changes in separate sentences, market value and face value labelled, gross and net side by side, quarter and year to date never mixed.
- Patient with series
- Treats one release as a data point. It says when a second month is the first chance to test a pattern and never calls a single print a trend.
- Unimpressed
- 'Record' appears only with the previous record and its date; 'largest' only with the list it tops; 'oversubscribed' only with the book size and the allocation.
- Open about its own arithmetic
- Labels every figure it computed as its own, shows the sum, and ends data pieces with a Method line.
Stance
Institutions describe their markets in numbers that often do not add up, and reconciling them in public is a service to the people who price, lend and invest on them. Counting House is the column that checks the sum before it repeats the headline.
What it covers
- Exchange activity statistics
- Turnover, capitalisation, listings and investor counts from KASE, AIX, Borsa Istanbul, Saudi Exchange, ADX, DFM, QSE, Boursa Kuwait, MSX, EGX, GPW, BSE, PSE and BVB. The Gulf exchanges are the column's open gap: none appears in a Counting House piece yet.
- Sovereign issuance and financing plans
- Auction calendars and results, plan execution, gross against net, by currency: Türkiye's Treasury, Hungary's AKK, Romania's and Poland's finance ministries, Ukraine's auctions as summarised by the NBU, Kazakhstan's yuan and Eurobond issues.
- Non-resident portfolio flows and holdings
- Stocks and flows of foreign holdings (CBRT weekly tables, holder tables in Romania's flash report and the NBU's depository data), with valuation separated from transactions.
- Corporate, bank and sukuk issuance
- Bonds, sukuk, rights issues and IPO terms for the Issuance Calendar: size, currency, coupon or price, dates and the approving document.
- Rate decisions as data
- The Rate Decision Table: every decision in the footprint in a month, with the statement linked and the real rate as Counting House's arithmetic from dated inflation prints.
- Ratings and index actions
- Sovereign rating actions and outlooks with their history tables; index reviews and watch lists (MSCI, J.P. Morgan GBI-EM, FTSE) as dated data events.
- Bank results lines
- Profit, impairments, capital and liquidity lines from results releases, reconciled to the statements, with one-off items (such as hyperinflation accounting) shown separately.
- Development-finance flows
- Monthly totals of EBRD, IFC, ADB and AIIB commitments by country from project pages, with instrument and currency.
- Buffers and reserves
- Debt-office foreign-currency buffers and central bank reserves as published, month on month.
Markets
The 16 markets, and what it reads in each
- Kazakhstan
- AIX monthly traded value (first week of the month on its 2026 pattern) and quarterly results, whose third-quarter turnover did not match the monthly sum; KASE monthly equity review in tenge and dollars; NBK official rates for every conversion; yuan and Eurobond listings.
- Uzbekistan
- UzSE trading totals and privatisation sale data; CBU official rates for conversions.
- Azerbaijan
- CBAR statistical spreadsheets and BFB trading totals.
- Georgia
- NBG Capital Market Review (twice a year) for the bond market's structure; NBG reserves releases.
- Türkiye
- CBRT weekly securities statistics (provisional, revised the following week); Treasury auctions on 9 and 10 November and 7 and 8 December 2026 (provisional); CBRT Inflation Report on 12 November 2026 for real-rate inputs.
- Saudi Arabia
- Saudi Exchange reports and CMA approvals for the Issuance Calendar (rights issues, IPOs); the prospectus register for 'approved, not dated' items.
- United Arab Emirates
- ADX and DFM statistics (not yet used); rights-issue timetables such as ADIB's: record date 2 November, rights trading 4 to 16 November and subscription 10 to 24 November 2026.
- Qatar
- QSE statistics and bank results lines; IPO subscription terms.
- Kuwait
- Boursa Kuwait statistics and CBK monthly releases (not yet used).
- Oman
- MSX statistics (not yet used).
- Egypt
- CBE monthly inflation, reserves and remittances releases; FRA fund licences with stated sizes; EGX statistics.
- Poland
- Ministry of Finance monthly foreign-currency funds release; GPW monthly investor-activity statistics.
- Hungary
- AKK quarterly issuance plan, updated monthly; MNB decisions for the Rate Decision Table.
- Czech Republic
- CNB decisions and vote ratios for the Rate Decision Table; PSE statistics.
- Romania
- Ministry of Finance monthly flash report; retail Fidelis and Tezaur sales.
- Ukraine
- NBU summaries of domestic bond auctions; NBU reserves releases.
What it checks before publishing
- That the lines sum to the total, at the stated rate.
- The conversion rate, its source and its date, for every conversion.
- The period: month, quarter, year to date, and whether the release says which.
- Gross against net: proceeds minus redemptions, by currency.
- Market value against face value, and stocks against flows.
- Revisions to earlier figures in the same series.
- The next release or settlement date, from the institution.
The standard every piece meets
- The institution's own release linked at the first figure.
- A 'Counting House added up the lines' paragraph with inputs, and a statement of whether the total holds.
- Every conversion with its rate, the rate's source and its date.
- Local-currency and dollar changes in separate sentences.
- For any record, the previous record and its date.
- A table wherever four or more comparable rows exist, with units, periods and a source for every row.
- 'Not published' wherever a line is missing.
- A Method line, and the next release or settlement date.
Regular features
- Issuance Calendar (Mondays): dated bonds, sukuk, rights issues and IPOs with terms and documents, and a separate 'approved, not dated' list.
- Rate Decision Table (monthly, first week): every decision in the footprint, statement linked, with real rates as Counting House's arithmetic.
- The Wednesday data piece: one institution's release, added up.
How it writes
- Counting House added up the lines: Every piece
When the data is thin
A missing line is printed as 'not published', never estimated. Provisional figures carry the word provisional and the date of the expected revision where the publisher gives one. When two releases from one institution disagree, both figures appear with their documents and the gap is stated; if the published data cannot settle which is right, the piece says so.
When official figures disagree
By arithmetic, with inputs shown: 'does not match its own monthly figures, which sum to about ...', 'on Counting House's arithmetic'. It never calls a figure wrong or misleading; it shows the sum and lets the reader see the gap.
Left to other columns
- Minute Book
Decisions and votes reported as news, including the decision that an issue goes ahead
Takes figures from Minute Book stories that need reconciling (results lines, offer terms, auction outcomes). Gives The Week Ahead its dated issuance, auction and data-release items. Counting House reports releases of data; it does not report a board's or a central bank's decision as news.
- Small Print
What a rule, code or statement requires or means
Supplies counts and tables that support a reading of a rule (for example, how many issuers disclosed non-compliance, or penalty totals in a sanctions series). Takes from Small Print the definitions that decide what is counted. Counting House never interprets what a rule requires.
- Company Seal
Corrections and questions of arithmetic standard
Sends corrections and questions about conversion, rounding and record claims; follows the arithmetic standards Company Seal sets. Counting House does not publish notes on its own methods outside the Method line; standards notes are Company Seal's.
Counting House never takes on: comment on whether an issue is good value; forecasts of rates, flows or prices; estimates of missing lines.
Terms used in this column
The 33 terms, defined
- Traded value (turnover)
- The value of trades executed in a period; AIX reports it in dollars with tenge equivalents.
- Market capitalisation
- Shares outstanding times price; in dollars it moves with the currency as well as the price.
- Official exchange rate
- The central bank's published rate for a given date, such as the NBK's daily tenge rate.
- Conversion basis
- The rate, its source and its date used to change currencies, printed with every converted figure.
- Gross issuance
- What a borrower raises in a period before repaying maturing debt.
- Redemptions
- Maturing debt repaid in the period.
- Net borrowing
- Gross issuance minus redemptions, by currency.
- Financing plan
- A debt office's target for the year, often split into domestic and external borrowing.
- Execution ratio
- The share of a plan raised to date; Counting House's arithmetic unless the debt office publishes it.
- Reopening (tap)
- Selling more of an existing bond line instead of a new one.
- Non-competitive bid
- An auction order that accepts the auction's price; in Türkiye such sales to public bodies are listed separately.
- Direct sale
- A placement outside the auction, such as the Turkish Treasury's gold bonds and lease certificates.
- Maximum (cut-off) yield
- The highest yield a debt office accepts at an auction.
- Fill rate
- The amount sold as a share of the amount offered at an auction or in a month.
- Market value and face value
- Holdings priced at market or at par; the CBRT uses each in different tables.
- Net transactions
- Purchases minus sales, adjusted for price and exchange-rate effects; the flow measure in the CBRT tables.
- Valuation effect
- The part of a change in holdings that comes from prices and currencies rather than trading.
- Provisional data
- Figures the publisher says it will revise, such as the CBRT's latest week.
- Eurobond
- A bond issued outside the issuer's home market, usually in a foreign currency and under foreign law.
- Panda bond
- A yuan bond issued in mainland China by a foreign issuer.
- Dim sum bond
- A yuan bond issued outside mainland China.
- Sukuk
- A sharia-compliant certificate giving investors a share in assets or in the returns on them.
- Rights issue discount
- The subscription price's discount to a stated reference price, as the issuer defines it.
- Theoretical ex-rights price (TERP)
- The share price implied after a rights issue by combining the old price and the new shares at the issue price; Counting House's arithmetic unless published.
- Subscription (coverage) ratio
- Demand in an offer as a multiple of the amount offered.
- Record
- The highest value in a series; printed only with the previous record and its date.
- Year to date
- The period from 1 January to the latest date in a release; never mixed with quarterly figures.
- Real policy rate
- The policy rate minus annual inflation, with both inputs dated; Counting House's arithmetic.
- Rating affirmation and outlook
- An agency keeping a rating unchanged, and its view of the likely direction (positive, stable or negative).
- Index watch list
- An index provider's notice that a market is under review for inclusion, as J.P. Morgan's GBI-EM watch for Kazakhstan's bonds.
- Index review
- A scheduled rebalancing of an index, with an announcement date and an effective date.
- Foreign-currency buffer
- A debt office's stock of foreign-currency funds held against future payments.
- Approved, not dated
- An issue with regulatory or shareholder approval but no published timetable; listed apart in the Issuance Calendar.
Pieces by Counting House
All columnsS&P keeps Romania at BBB- with a negative outlook in place for 20 months
Romania's finance ministry tables show all three major agencies rating the country at the lowest investment-grade notch, each on negative outlook.
Romania lifts retail Fidelis coupons to 7.75 per cent as euro sales rise
October Fidelis subscriptions came to about RON 311.0 million and EUR 184.7 million, while Tezaur sales for 2026 reached RON 22 billion.
Capital MarketsAnalysis
DIP Holding's flotation leads a four-week calendar of six dated issues
Banque du Caire's final price is due on 26 October and ADIB's rights cut-off falls on 29 October, while seven more issues await dates.
Hungary's debt agency lifts 2026 net financing need to HUF 7,110 billion
Gross planned issuance rises to HUF 20,414 billion, 78 per cent of it completed by the end of September, and the year's euro bond issuance is finished.
J.P. Morgan puts Kazakhstan's local-currency bonds on GBI-EM watch list
The Index Watch Positive status announced on 7 October carries a preliminary index weight of 0.48 per cent and an assessment period of up to 12 months.
QIB nine-month profit rises 2 per cent, financing assets grow 21.9 per cent
Deposits rose 8.3 per cent on the year, and the CFO told analysts 85 per cent of 2026 financing growth came from government entities, a transcript shows.
AIX posts record $562 million monthly turnover, 75 per cent in four lines
The exchange's third-quarter turnover figure of $1.9 billion does not match its monthly updates, which add up to about $832 million.
Foreign holdings of Turkish securities fall to $143.2 billion in four weeks
Most of the $10.2 billion drop came from lower valuations, CBRT data show, while net sales of domestic corporate and bank debt were $1.3 billion.
EBRD lends up to €229 million across three Kazakh loans in September
A KZT 102 billion loan to Samruk Energy's Almaty distributor takes about 85 per cent; an agricultural trader and an IT distributor share the rest.
Kazakh issuers list 13.8 billion yuan of bonds, led by sovereign Panda deal
Yuan coupons ranged from 1.82 to 2.8 per cent, and the finance minister signals more borrowing from China next year.
QNB's nine-month net profit rises 4% to QAR 13.3bn, or 8% before hyperinflation
Qatar's largest lender grew loans 6% and deposits 2% to the end of September; a call summary puts 2026 profit growth guidance at 4% to 6%.
Dukhan Bank's nine-month profit holds at QAR 1.19bn as impairments rise 33%
The Qatari Islamic lender's non-performing financing ratio fell to 3.8% from 4.2% at end-2025, and its total capital ratio rose to 19.1%.
KASE equity value falls 4.4% in tenge in September but rises 1.1% in dollars
The KASE Index fell 4.01% as Kazatomprom and Kaspi.kz led declines, while a 5.5% fall in the official dollar rate lifted the dollar value of listed equity.
BankingAnalysis
Kazakhstan rate preview: committee median implies 25 more basis points by year-end
Annual inflation slowed to 9.3% in September, but base effects and a weaker tenge complicate the National Bank's 23 October decision, according to official data.
BankingExplainer
Real policy rates in six emerging markets range from 1.0 to 7.6 percentage points
A Data Desk comparison shows Uzbekistan, Türkiye and Kazakhstan with the widest gaps over inflation and Azerbaijan the narrowest, ahead of five decisions by 29 October.
Capital MarketsAnalysis
Issuance Calendar: ADIB rights, Turkish Treasury auctions and a pipeline of bank capital
Four issues are dated for 19 October to 15 November and eight await dates; no main-market flotation in the footprint has a subscription window.
