Turkish currency's freefall rocks equity markets, euro

Reuters  |  NEW YORK/LONDON 

By and Ritvik Carvalho

European shares and a gauge of global equity markets closed down more than 1 percent, while losses on Wall Street fell nearly as much. Germany's DAX index <.GDAXI> slid 2 percent.

The lira fell as much as 18 percent against the dollar in its worst day since Turkey's financial crisis of 2001. The plunge followed a deepening rift with the United States, worries about its own and lack of action from policymakers.

told Turks to swap gold and dollars into lira as the currency tumbled after doubled U.S. tariffs on metals imports from

later warned the that sanctions and pressure would only serve to harm ties between the two NATO allies, adding would continue to retaliate as necessary against U.S. tariffs.

The lira has fallen more than 40 percent this year, fanning worries about a full-blown economic crisis.

shares across fell and the euro slipped to its lowest since July 2017 as quoted sources as saying the European Central was concerned about European lenders' exposure to The country is not a member of the but is economically linked to it.

The dollar rose as exposure to Turkey could impact European banks and spark a domino effect as people begin to pull out of those banks and into U.S. assets, said Gregan Anderson, at brokerage

The turmoil has made it difficult for global investors to justify remaining in and is negative for emerging markets, he said.

Policy errors created the current situation, with the central bank's decision not to raise rates in their last meeting a key driver, said Charlie Wilson, an emerging at in Santa Fe,

"The lira has been weakening since and it's coming to a head today," Wilson said, adding the downward spiral will continue if Turkey insists on a soft landing.

"The only way to correct these policy mistakes is to really make some concrete changes on the fiscal and monetary side."

Shares in France's , Italy's and Spain's , the banks seen as most exposed to Turkey, fell 3 percent or more.

An index of regional shares <.SX7E> closed down 3.2 percent while the pan-European 600 index <.STOXX> fell 1.07 percent.

The index <.MIWD00000PUS>, which tracks shares in 47 countries, was down 1.19 percent and erased all its gains for the week.

Wall Street also fell.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> fell 261.53 points, or 1.03 percent, to 25,247.7. The <.SPX> lost 25.67 points, or 0.90 percent, to 2,827.91 and the <.IXIC> dropped 64.41 points, or 0.82 percent, to 7,827.37.

Investors piled into "safe" government debt, with German yields hitting three-week lows and the yield on the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury note falling to 2.8605 percent as investors sought its safety.

The safe-haven Japanese yen hit a one-month high of 113.38 against the dollar.

The dollar index <.DXY>, which measures the greenback's strength against a group of six major currencies, breached 96, taking it to its highest level since July 2017. It was last up 0.9 percent at 96.364.

Emerging market stocks <.MSCIEF> lost 1.77 percent, while the Mexican peso , a proxy for emerging market currencies, shed 1.63 percent to the dollar.

Adding to emerging market currency woes was the Russian ruble, which weakened to 67.6825 to the dollar. Overnight it had retreated to its lowest since November 2016 on threats of new U.S. sanctions, weakening beyond the psychologically important 65-per-dollar threshold.

rose more than 1 percent as U.S. sanctions against looked set to tighten supply, but futures remained lower for the week as investors worried that global trade disputes could slow economic growth and hurt demand for

Benchmark Brent rose 74 cents to settle at $72.81 a barrel. U.S. light crude settled 82 cents higher at $67.33 a barrel.

U.S. gold futures for December delivery settled down 90 cents, or 0.1 percent, at $1,219 per ounce.

(Reporting by Ritvik Carvalho; Writing by Herbert Lash; Additional reporting by in LONDON, Rodrigo Campos in New York, and markets team; Editing by Janet Lawrence, and Diane Craft)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Sat, August 11 2018. 01:11 IST