The Turkish lira may become viable after the central bank gave signs higher interest rates were underway, but some investors are concerned that any effective relief will require an extreme hike that it is sure to deliver.
Further, it is on record that even after 700 basis points of monetary pull back since December; consumer-price growth has increased for five months, reducing the inflation adjusted policy rate to about 1 percent. If this situation is to be the same in June, the central bank would have to raise costs to borrowers by another 400 basis points to stabilize the lira.
Around the world, Central banks have been forced into action by emerging-market instabilities. A significant example is Argentina hiking rates by 1,500 basis points last week; second is Turkey’s 10-year government bonds yield which has fallen for a second day, dropping to 20.91 percent and continuing its decline this week to 85 basis points.
Nomura International Plc has proffered a solution requiring Turkey to raise the one-week repo rate by at least 575 basis points to 23.5 percent; however, the company is unsure policymakers will be prepared to deliver such aggressive tightening.
Just as Guillaume Tresca, a strategist at Credit Agricole SA in Paris fears that increased rates are very imminent as he tips the lira lesser to 8.30 per dollar in December. He says: “Market expectations are now running high for a bold rate hike. In our view, they can only disappoint markets, very well the lira is weakening to 8.30 per dollar by December.” Guillaume lastly noted that the current stance by the central bank to this turmoil shows they are running out of ammunition.
Recently the lira slipped 0.3 percent to 6.6578 per dollar as of 10:29 a.m. in Istanbul on Tuesday. The currency went down as much as 2.6 percent on Monday before reducing the decline to a loss of 1.5 percent. Based on relevant speculations that hikes are looming, the central bank is to hold its next policy meeting on Sept. 13 to decide necessary actions to support price stability.
Further, It can be rightly inferred that with the amount of pressure on Recep Tayyip Erdogan the President to keep the growth moving along, it is not a surprise that investor skepticism over the acceptability of any policy action is running high. By allowing inflation go into the double digits for most of the past two years and relying on controlling liquidity management instead of immediate hikes the central bank has remained firmly in deficit.
Inan Demir, an economist at Nomura, says he is unsure of what to expect however he has subjected fate to Monday’s statement, he say: “I’m not very confident, to say the least, If Monday’s statement is a signal of unconventional policies, the market will be underwhelmed by the policy response.”
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