Turkish stocks and country-specific ETF climbed Tuesday as the lira currency strengthened after the central bank introduced measures to tighten liquidity and local traders sold U.S. dollars to profit on the recent currency pullback.
The iShares MSCI Turkey ETF (NasdaqGM: TUR) surged 10.5% Tuesday. Technical traders may also note that TUR’s chart formed a morning star candlestick pattern, a bullish sign following a downward trend. The pattern that consists of three candles – a tall red candlestick, a second small red or white candle closing below the first, and a third tall white candle above the middle candle – is seen as an indicator of a trend reversal from bearish to bullish.
Lifting Turkey’s markets, the lira currency strengthened 8.08% against the greenback to $0.1567 Tuesday.
The lira surged as the central bank did not offer commercial lenders cash through its one-week repo liquidity window for another day, which would force them to borrow at the more expensive overnight rate of 19.25%, Bloomberg reports.
How Far Can Turkey Bounce Back?
The bounce back may stem from “relief that the [bank]got through yesterday without resort to capital controls, or some more extreme scenario,” Timothy Ash, senior emerging markets strategist at Bluebay Asset Management, told CNBC. “And the central bank finally came to the table with some behind the scenes tightening.”
However, there are still lingering concerns over the Turkish central bank’s ability to stay independent, given President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s previous statements on monetary policy.