Weekly Increase in USD/TL Rate Reached 3 Percent

The upward momentum in USD/TL exchange rate continues. Exchange rate gained 3 percent in 4 days.

The weekly increase in USD/TL rate reached 3 percent. In global markets, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's statements, following the news about vaccination, the US dollar decreased against many currencies, while the depreciation of the Turkish Lira against the US dollar continued on the new trading day. The Turkish Lira, along with the Mexican peso, was recorded as the currency with the highest loss in the first transactions of the day. The USD/TL rate, which started the week at 7.01 level, reached above 7.24 in Wednesday's transactions. On the new trading day, the exchange rate tested the 7.19 level. Turkey's risk premium was traded at 293 basis points, while the benchmark bond rate was recorded as 14.92 percent.   Focus is on the Macro Data While the markets closely monitored bond yields, inflation expectations and commodity pricing to be announced globally, domestic attention turned to macro data to be announced next week. Growth and inflation data will be shared in Turkey next week. In Turkey, economists predicted that the country will grow above 2 percent in 2020, when the damage caused by the coronavirus epidemic was felt heavily in the economy and the economy of many countries contracted. In the survey prepared by the Bloomberg HT Research Unit and participated by 21 institutions, the average of expectations for 2020 was recorded as 2.3 percent. While the highest estimate was 2.5 percent in the survey, the lowest expectation was 1.3 percent. Economists gave the message that growth will accelerate in the last quarter of the year compared to the previous quarters. According to the results obtained from the survey, the median expectation of economists for the fourth quarter of the year was 7.3 percent. The highest estimate for this data is 8.3 percent; The lowest estimate was recorded as 3.5 percent. The average estimation of 19 institutions that announced their expectations for 2021 is that the growth will be 4.5 percent this year. According to the information obtained from the inflation survey conducted by the Bloomberg HT Research Unit, inflation will reach 15.50 percent annually in February. Economists predict that the rise in annual inflation will continue in February. The average forecast of 17 economists who participated in the Bloomberg HT survey was that the consumer price index would increase 0.8 percent monthly and 15.50 percent annually.