Nathan Rothschild supposedly said that he got rich by getting out too soon. We certainly got out of Turkey too soon, after calling the Turkish market as an outperformer in mid-January. A surge in Turkish banks made the country the world’s best-performing stock market today.
- The Borsa Istanbul 30 Index rose 2% for biggest gain among 96 equity benchmarks tracked by Bloomberg.
- Isbank led the pack, up 4.9%, followed by Akbank (+4.2%), and Garanti (+4.2%).
- Bank of America Merrill Lynch upgraded Akbank and Garanti bank to buy from neutral, and Vakifbank to neutral from underperform.
- Cagdas Dogan, analyst at BGC Partners: A pending referendum continues to pose political risk, but in the short term markets are just waiting for the uncertainty from the referendum to be removed.
Source: Bloomberg