USD/TRY Rockets To All-Time High

 | Jun 08, 2015 03:10PM ET

It’s been a relatively quiet first day of trade in the G10 FX market, where the biggest story has been profit-taking in the US dollar after Friday’s strong NFP report. Things are much more interesting in the EM FX space, where the greenback is actually hitting major highs against some of its emerging rivals.

USD/TRY: Erdoğan’s Lament

The epicenter of Monday’s biggest FX market move is in Turkey (how often can you say that?), where the weekend’s election resulted in a disappointing performance for Turkey’s ruling AKP party. The party of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was only able to capture 41% of the votes, below the 50% required to form an absolute majority and ending 13 years of single-party rule. Clearly, Turkish voters rejected Erdoğan’s plans to make himself an executive president with minimal checks and balances on his power. With no party capturing an outright majority, a messy horse-trading process to try to form a coalition is likely over the next month.

In the long run, the vote in favor of limited power should benefit Turkey’s economy and currency, but the immediate prospect of political uncertainty has caused traders to sell the lira first and ask questions later. USD/TRY gapped up to a new all-time high at 2.75, and rates spiked further to 2.81 before settling back at 2.75 as of writing. With the big breakout above previous resistance in the 2.72-3 zone confirmed and the forecast calling for more near-term geopolitical uncertainty, USD/TRY could extend its rally toward the 161.8% Fibonacci extension at 2.86 next.