The nutter in Ankara has done it again… The TRY crashed to new record lows yesterday after Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan again refused to support raising interest rates, CNBC reports. The TRY fell to 13.47 yesterday against the greenback, smashing past its record low of 13.45 set last week after Turkish press published fresh comments from the president supporting rate cuts. The central bank has cut interest rates in each of its previous three meetings, despite inflation running at almost 20% and other countries starting to tighten policy and withdraw monetary stimulus.

RIP TRY: In the past three months alone the currency has crashed more than 50% from 8.5 to the USD to more than 13 and has lost more than a third of its value in November.

UAE’s bns burned? The slide in the TRY was stopped momentarily last week by Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s first visit to Turkey in years, during which the two countries inked a raft of agreements that will see the Emirate invest bns of USD in the Turkish economy.

Onward with the charm offensive: Erdogan has suggested that Ankara try to repeat the diplomatic breakthrough with the UAE, this time with Egypt and Israel, Reuters reports. “Whatever kind of step was taken with the UAE, we will also take similar ones with the others [Israel and Egypt],” he was reported as saying.

UK blocks Facebook’s acquisition of Giphy: The UK’s competition watchdog has ordered Meta / Facebook to sell Giphy, the animated images platform it agreed to acquire last year for USD 400 mn, due to concerns the purchase would hand the social media giant too much market power.

A surprise drop in the USD is threatening to unwind the USD-JPY carry trade, a popular trade that has wiped out entire hedge funds in past decades, the Wall Street Journal reports. Carry traders were blindsided when the JPY, EUR and GBP all rose sharply against the USD on Omicron news, which goes against the conventional wisdom of markets selling off broadly and investors running towards the safety of the USD. Some of the USD’s declines partially reversed on Monday with more Omicron details emerging, but resumed again Tuesday. The carry trade sees investors borrowing in low-yielding currencies, including the JPY, to buy currencies where they expect rates to rise, such as the USD, pocketing the difference in the process.

THE CLOSING BELL-

The EGX30 rose 1.6% yesterday on turnover of EGP 1.81 bn (20.9% above the 90-day average). Local investors were net sellers. The index is up 5.1% YTD.

In the green: Fawry (+7.4%), Heliopolis Housing (+6.7%) and EFG Hermes (+5.2%).

In the red: Cleopatra Hospital (-2.2%), Egypt Kuwait Holding-EGP (-2.0%) and Telecom Egypt (-1.4%).