Wednesday, May 6, 2009

EconNews Roundup

Construction machinery producers are trying to enter the Turkish market: I wonder who they will sell to right now...

Easing inflation points to rate cuts and more banking on rate cuts and more crowding out of private credit. No wonder bond yields are going down.

The latest jump in consumer confidence, if anything, has reinforced my belief not to make so much out of these indices. The recent jump reflects not only favorable asset prices, an important determinant of the the index as well as the recent tax cuts. Note that this is not something specific to Turkey; Robert Shiller, for whom I was honored to serve as a research slave (and who later paid his debt for advising my thesis), has an excellent article on Sunday's NYT highlighting similar biases in the US version of the index (Michigan consumer sentiment).

Last but not the least, an interesting quote from the business world's view of the cabinet reshuffle:
Unakıtan had protected the Turkish currency well and I think Simsek can also manage to do that
Could anyone explain to me how a FinMin can protect the currency?

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