Turkish lira slips to record low

LONDON - The Turkish lira slipped to a record low on Friday on concerns around stubbornly high inflation.

The lira eased 0.1% against the dollar to an all-time low of 7.4541, weakening for the fifth session in a row with pressure growing on the central bank to continue tightening credit a day after data showed year-on-year inflation of 11.77%.

The currency has lost about 20% this year despite central bank intervention and, along with Hungary's forint, is among Europe's worst performing currencies.

"Yesterday's combination of risk-off in assets and a firm dollar triggered new lows for the lira and also saw EUR-HUF return close to the 360.00 mark, which is back inside the forint's 'corona cloud'," said Tatha Ghose, FX analyst at Commerzbank.

"The underperformance of these currencies tells us about longer-term prospects: we think it is a template for which currencies would be vulnerable in a more sustained EM FX sell-off."