After the shocking interest rate hike by Turkish Central Bank that made many people mesmerized late at night, we have seen how Turkish Lira has turned into a hit and run for traders as it reached at 2.31 per dollar after breaking below 2.17. The decision was interpreted as that Turkish Central bank regains the credibility that it lost (last week). Well, taking a look at the exchange rates, it seems like credibility is lost again but may be gained back again by tomorrow. In my humble opinion, what matters is to simplify the policy that is actually done.
Yesterday, I noted that CBT sees possibility of serious slowdown. After blowing the rates everyone does so. Here is another post that highlights the damage on economy upon some economic data points. Even worse, all confidence indicators we have for Turkish economy are slumping dramatically.
The first chart above demonstrates that how Capacity Utilization Ratio, Real Sector Confidence Index and Consumer Confidence Index have been sliding for the last two months. More is the pity we have had consumer data since January 2012. For this reason I generated the second chart only showing CUR and RSCI starting Jan 2007.
Excepting the slight increase in CUR on last November, these two indicators have been losing momentum in four consecutive month. Wondering what happened the last time these two indicators did the same pattern? We had the similar performance between June and October in 2008 that was followed by negative growth period lasting for four quarters. Certainly global conditions built a positive case for Turkey neither in 2008 nor today.