USD/TRY eked out fresh multi-month.....>

TURKISH LIRA: USD/TRY eked out fresh multi-month highs again Tuesday, with

markedly underperforming the rest of EMFX despite the weakness of the greenback

so far today. USD/TRY price action so far today topped out at 5.9849, with

resistance eyed at the October highs of 6.2282 and 6.1853, the 50% retracement

of the fall from 7.2362 - 5.1344. USD/TRY bulls also eye the potential formation

of a golden cross, with the 50-dma at 5.5729 nearing in on the 200-dma at

5.6002.

-The moves today come despite comments from the Turkish central bank earlier

today who signalled that while they have softened their stance on policy in the

face of high inflation, the bank could return to another round of monetary

tightening. This rhetoric was countered by the bank's failure to explain recent

FX reserves numbers that were investigated by the Financial Times a few weeks

ago and found the numbers to be inflated by swaps arrangements with local banks.

The Turkish central bank kept inflation forecasts for this year and the next

unchanged, forecasting 14.6% in 2019 and 8.2% in 2020, well below what's

currently expected at this Friday's release: 20.31% for the Y/Y figure.