Turkey’s lira slumped to fresh record lows against the US dollar. A couple of years ago one could hardly say that the Turkish currency hit its bottom but the freefall seems to be endless. Statistics show that the dollar/lira pair has plummeted for two weeks. Notably, the lira lost about 8% in each trading session, and the drawdown grew after Recep Tayyip Erdogan was reelected. The monetary regulators reject costly monetary interventions. Turkey’s national currency plummets amid claims that government lenders have stopped selling US dollars to protect the lira. Erdogan kept only two ministers from his previous cabinet. The new head of the Ministry of Finance and Treasury, Mehmet Simsek, a former Merrill Lynch strategist who is expected to return to more traditional economic and financial policies, has already said that his main goal is to achieve macro-financial stability and lower inflation.
