A 5% surge in Turk Telekom pushed the Istanbul 30 Index to modest gains. The mobile provider reported an unexpectedly large gain in EBITDA and the Istanbul brokerage Global Securities added the stock to its preferred list. Turkey has one of the highest rates of smartphone penetration in the emerging world, and mobile providers will benefit from expanding e-commerce and e-finance.
Meanwhile the riskiness of the national currency, the Turkish lira, has fallen sharply since it peaked with last July’s coup attempt. The implied volatility of 3-month options on the USD-TRY exchange rate reached 20% last summer and has fallen back to bit over 12%.