Finance
Wall Street’s Embrace of Turkey Unraveled in Just 30 Minutes
- Lira’s sudden plunge shocked Deutsche Bank-arranged meeting
- Wall Street ‘won’t go back in a hurry’ to Turkey, SocGen says
When Wall Street banks and hedge funds gathered in Istanbul last Wednesday with a top Turkish economist, they were prepared to hear about the country’s improved stability. Then they glanced at their phones.
The Turkish lira was plunging against the US dollar, fueled by that morning’s detention of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu — the biggest rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The group, assembled by Deutsche Bank AG and including clients such as Millennium Partners and Gramercy Funds Management, were shocked and couldn’t take their eyes off their screens, people familiar with the matter said.