Turkey’s main banking index fell 3 percent following US President Donald Trump’s remarks declaring that the ceasefire between the United States and Iran is over. Trump had called Iranian forces “dirty players” and “scum,” and said the US had “attacked very powerfully” against Iran overnight, sharply escalating rhetoric around the conflict.
The decline reflects Turkey’s proximity to the Gulf region and its exposure to regional instability, with banking stocks typically among the first to react given their sensitivity to shifts in risk sentiment, capital flows and the lira’s exchange rate. Renewed fears of a broader conflict tend to weigh heavily on emerging market financials as investors reassess country risk and pull back from riskier assets.
The fall in Turkey’s banking index comes alongside a broader risk-off reaction across global markets on the day, with crude oil prices jumping sharply, euro zone bond yields rising, and equity benchmarks across Asia, including Japan’s Nikkei 225 and South Korea’s KOSPI, also declining. Indian markets fell in tandem, with the Sensex and Nifty both down over 1 percent as investors reassessed the odds of an escalation following the latest exchange of strikes between the US and Iran.
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