7 replies to this topic

[Big Chris]

It has been rumoured or even stated for some time that Turkey is one of the fastest growing and stable of the "emerging markets". Therefore, a safe place to invest your hard earned cash in property or the stock market for instance. I am afraid to repeat the old adage" if it looks to good to be true then...". The property sector we can discuss another time. Just want to concentrate on the stock market for a sec. I will simply refer you to an article in the Turkish daily news on the 17th August 2007

The problem with emerging markets is that when the big boys sneeze, they get a cold! The big boys have a cold already and the flu may be around the corner. Therefore unless you are a gambler, be careful in investing in the Turkish stock market.

Sorry about the doom and gloom.

I may also be completely wrong, but i do remember the bad old days.

[Ken]

Chris, I have to agree with you on that. I was here in, what was it, 2002, during the big financial crisis. The prime minister, Ecevit, and the president (I forget his name), had a public argument about what they were going to do about corruption. Apparently lots of foreign investors pulled out overnight because of this argument, the economy crashed, just because of that one seemingly small event. I had friends who lost huge sums of money in the market, just regular guys who thought a good place for their life savings was in the stock market. One sold at a huge loss, the other stuck it out... But I remember the week after that, I needed to buy Turkish Lira, and nobody knew what it was worth or what to sell it for.

A lot of reforms happened after that, but I'm still a bit leery about investing in Turkish stocks. Strangely enough, the US dollar has dropped significantly, so perhaps by NOT investing in Turkish Lira, I've actually lost. I remember something that was asked of one of the industry leaders in the US in the 1930s... they were asked "what do you think the stock market will do?" "It will fluctuate," was his reply.

May I ask, are you also involved in the financial markets? I once studied to be a financial planner, eventually I found that it wasn't something I wanted to spend my life doing!

By the way, please feel free to introduce yourself in the New Members forum, so we can all give you a proper welcome...

[Big Chris]

oops

[sunny]

I think the 'opps' applies to stock markets all over the world according to what I've seen on CNBCe.

[benhalterci]

Well yes my bank manager told me the lira is falling because of the credit crunch but didn't go into details! I have a chunk of my savings here in YTL but I am buying my house in November in GBP so if this goes on I will get a bargain! But when I transferred the money over from the UK the pound dropped against the YTL sharply that day and recovered the next so I lost a couple of grand:( Even without investing in stocks you can see nowadays ordinary currency transactions are like a go on the lottery.
As far as the lira falling I suppose that soon prices will go up? This happened to the rouble when I lived in Russia for 10 years.

[Jimpenny]

It has been rumoured or even stated for some time that Turkey is one of the fastest growing and stable of the "emerging markets". Therefore, a safe place to invest your hard earned cash in property or the stock market for instance. I am afraid to repeat the old adage" if it looks to good to be true then...". The property sector we can discuss another time. Just want to concentrate on the stock market for a sec. I will simply refer you to an article in the Turkish daily news on the 17th August 2007

The problem with emerging markets is that when the big boys sneeze, they get a cold! The big boys have a cold already and the flu may be around the corner. Therefore unless you are a gambler, be careful in investing in the Turkish stock market.

Sorry about the doom and gloom.

I may also be completely wrong, but i do remember the bad old days.

Is it good to invest in Turkish Stock Market these days

[Abi]

Good question. unfortunately one that is hard to answer as these days it's a risk to invest in any stock market.

[mitchmoud]

It is a good time with a caveat: If you can hold the stock and do not need the money to live. Short term buy and sell is not for the poor or faint of heart. My rule is: Never invest money I can't afford to lose.