The iShares MSCI Turkey (NYSEArca: TUR) is the worst-performing unleveraged ETF for the trailing the month with a loss of more than 20% as investors flee the emerging market amid anti-government protests.
TUR has crashed below its 50-day and 200-day moving averages the past two weeks.
“The once soaring Turkish stock market has fallen about 9% in the past week, interest rates are on the rise and, crucially, after a period of strength, the currency, the lira, has lost 8% in recent months,” The New York Times reports.
TUR does not hedge its foreign-currency exposure so the weaker lira has hurt the ETF.
The protests against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have been going on for a week now. The Turkey ETF is down nearly 15% the past five U.S. trading sessions alone.
Turkish bond yields surged, stocks slumped and the lira depreciated as Erdogan made little effort to calm anti-government protests that have entered their seventh day, Bloomberg News reported Thursday.
The cost of insuring Turkish debt against default using five-year credit-default swaps also rose.
“The market is under the crossfire,” Bulent Topbas, a fund manager at Strateji Menkul Degerler, told Bloomberg. “Investors were already exiting emerging markets on speculation that the U.S. Federal Reserve will reduce asset purchases. The protests have added insult to injury.”
Trading volume in the Turkey ETF has spiked this week.
iShares MSCI Turkey ETF
