Turkey’s central bank has burnt $7.6bn worth of FX reserves on April 7 and another  $3.1bn on April 8, according to calculations by @e507.

April 7 was marked as the day of the Trump tumult in global markets.

$43bn burnt

As a result, the total sum that has been burnt by Turkey’s government since the detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on March 19 has reached $42.7bn.

Tweet by @e507: Turkish central bank’s net FX position (net of off-balance sheet derivative items) declined to $16.2bn as of April 8.

The figure saw minus $60-70bn at its heights, suggesting the regime still has ammunition to keep drawing its straight line at 38.00 on the USD/TRY chart.

Consensus set

With drawing a three-week long straight line on the $/TRY chart, Turkey’s orthodox economy management has set a consensus at home and abroad that Turkey will deliver a devaluation sooner or later.

Between March 14 and March 28, overall portfolio outflows by foreigners amounted to $14bn. Data for the week to April 4 will be released on April 10 and this week’s data will come out on April 17.

On April 9, Haluk Burumcekci (@burumcekci) of Burumcekci Consulting noted that the dollarisation in local securities investment funds and private pension funds has surpassed the 40%-level.

Berat’s way

Such straight lines on the $/TRY chart were first introduced by ex-finance minister Berat Albayrak, the older son-in-law of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The current economy management is made up of literate men. So the current straight line is not a fruit of ignorance this time.

It is wondered why the orthodox men are doing it. They should deliver a letter via their proxies in the media, based on investigative journalism through unnamed ‘people familiar with the matter’.

Promise, child game or order?

If it should be speculated, rather than investigating solid information through unnamed familiar men, the orthodox men at the wheel of Turkey’s economy may have promised a certain level to some carry investors. So they are waiting for their men’s maturity.

Or, the orthodox crew at the central bank are playing inflation targetingship. They are good at throwing some analysis with employing state-of-the-art terminology. But at the end of the day, Turkey’s inflation is just about devaluation.

Another reason could be that they have received an order to cut the interest rates as Donald Trump is pushing the Fed to do at the moment.

After the $/TRY rose on March 19 to 38.00-level from the 36s, the finance industry is currently demanding an acceleration in the official April inflation release.

If they deliver more devaluation, the finance industry would demand higher official inflation releases and then their real rate would again turn to negative.