Turkish lira hits record low, stocks gain after Erdogan secures re

LONDON (Reuters) - hit fresh record lows against the dollar on meta trader4 platform downloadMonday though stocks rose after President Tayyip Erdogan secured victory in Sunday's presidential election, extending his increasingly authoritarian rule into a third decade.

The lira weakened to 20.065 to the dollar in early European trade, breaking through the previous record low touched on Friday.

The lira has slumped around 7% since the start of the year, and lost more than 90% of its value over the past decade, with the economy in the grip of boom-and-bust cycles and rampant bouts of inflation.

Since a 2021 currency crisis, Turkish authorities have taken an increasingly hands-on role in foreign exchange markets with daily moves having become unnaturally small and mostly recording a weakening while FX and gold reserves have dwindled.

"Erdogan’s victory has seen further pressure on the Turkish lira," said Benjamin Picton, senior macro strategist at Rabobank.

Erdogan prevailed despite years of economic turmoil which critics blame on unorthodox economic policies which the opposition had pledged to reverse.

Meanwhile, stocks enjoyed gains with the benchmark BIST-100 index up 3.5% and banking index rising more than 1%. The share of foreign asset managers holding Turkish stocks has dwindled in recent years and the market is chiefly driven by local investors.

"An Erdogan win offers no comfort for any foreign investor," said Hasnain Malik, head of equity research at Tellimer.

"Only the most optimistic would hope that Erdogan now feels sufficiently secure politically to revert to orthodox economic policy."

Erdogan's surprisingly strong showing in the first round of the election on May 14 had triggered a selloff in Turkey's international bonds and a spike in costs to insure exposure to its debt amid fading hopes of a change in economic policy.

The nation's dollar bonds slipped to their lowest in at least six months last week, while the cost of insuring exposure to Turkey's debt via credit default swaps (CDS) rose to a seven-month high.

On Monday, Turkey's international bonds were steady while CDS were hovering at Friday's closing level.

Trading is expected to be thin on Monday, with many markets in Europe as well as the United States closed for holidays.

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