Turkey’s lira weakens after presidential vote

Turkey's lira hit a two-month low on Monday and the country's credit default swaps jumped as a tightly-contested presidential election headed towards a runoff vote, while broader emerging market equities snapped a four-day losing streak.

Turkey's elections appeared set for a runoff vote, to be held on May 28, after President Tayyip Erdogan led over his opposition rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu, but fell short of an outright majority in Sunday's election - an event seen as the biggest political challenge to Erdogan's 20-year rule.

The lira weakened to 19.70 versus the dollar in the opening hours, Turkey-issued dollar bonds fell by more than 5 cents and the cost of insuring exposure to the country's debt spiked on Monday. Borsa Istanbul issued a market-wide circuit breaker after the benchmark index dropped more than 6% in pre-market trading.

The election results came...

Continue reading on: