The Turkish lira was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the renewed weakness of the U.S. dollar (DXY0) in the wake of Jackson Hole on Friday. USD/TRY closed at a new low for 2017. In fact, USD/TRY has not traded this low since early December, 2016.

The Turkish lira versus the U.S. dollar reached a new milestone for the year. USD/TRY confirmed the slow but ongoing weakening since the January peak.

The daily chart above shows how USD/TRY has trended downward slowly but surely since the twin peaks in January of this year. From May to early this month, the downward momentum slowed down to a crawl. The downward pull was so weak that the spike in early July fooled me into backing down on my bearish trading call on USD/TRY. I was grateful to cover my short position at the time for a small profit on the very next swoon downward.

While I was dismayed that I had no position in place to profit form last week’s plunge, I put USD/TRY back on my active radar. I will look to fade up to the now downward trending 20-day moving average.

For comparison, here is a chart of the iShares MSCI Turkey ETF (TUR). TUR gained 2.1% on Friday and closed at a fresh 2-year high. Turkey is resurgent once more.

Source for charts: FreeStockCharts.com

After a very rough start to the year, the iShares MSCI Turkey ETF  is up an astounding 42.9% year-to-date.

The performance in TUR takes me back to the beginning of the year when I speculated alongside El-Erian that Turkey’s currency would be a major performer of the year. USD/TRY just went negative year-to-date so perhaps it is just getting started.

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