The Turkish lira dropped by nearly 2% against the US dollar this morning, trading just below 4.17 and close to its all-time low of 4.196 on April 11.
All the emerging market “carry” (high-interest) currencies are trading weakly in anticipation of this afternoon’s Federal Reserve Open Market Committee announcement, but economic policy blunders make the Turkish lira the worst performer. Short-term Turkish government bond yields jumped to a record after the Erdogan government announced a $5.9 billion handout to pensioners in advance of the July elections.
The Philippine peso is down 0.2%, Mexican peso is down 0.3%, and the ruble is down by 1.3%.