US Dollar / Turkish Lira - USD/TRY

After the major economic crisis which happened several times between the end f the 90s and the beginning of the years 2000, the Turkish monetary authorities stabilized and made the banking system and the national currency more reliable (the new Turkish lira –TRY- established in 2005) thanks to national guarantee fund made of foreign currencies.

The endless depreciation of the Turkish lira against the US dollar (1 USD = 1,6 million old Turkish lira in 2001) seemed to be due to the past.

Remained stable from January 2005 to May 2006, the external value of the USD/TRY cross (between USD/TRY = 1,35 and USD/TRY = 1,32) knew a bullish movement in the Spring 2006 (USD/TRY = 1,60 by the end of June 2006) before the Turkish lira continuously appreciated against the US dollar until the end of 2007.

We observed on the Forex, the exchange value USD/TRY = 1,17 (+27% for the lira in a year and a half) and the fact that the Turkish central bank fixed high key interest rates could be a reason of this rise; on the USD/TRY cross, investors may have run “carry trade” operations which consists in buying the more interesting rate currency (the lira) in the lower rate currency (US dollar).

After a bullish period that led the cross to the value USD/TRY = 1,30 in March 2008, and in August 2008, we observed the low value USD/TRY = 1,15.

The worsening of the financial and stock exchange crisis which happened then made the investors ask a lot of dollars, and the Turkish Lira would fall by nearly 50% against the USD in few months: we had the higher of the cross (since 2005) USD/TRY = 1,71 by the end of February 2009.

A settlement of the bullish movement happened then from the first quarter of 2009 and the exchange value of the cross went under USD/TRY = 1,5 in June 2009.

The fluctuations of the USD/TRY cross would be stable and we observed USD/TRY = 1,4764 by mid-January 2010.