Turkey Halts Stock Trading for Five Days and Cancels Some Trades

Turkey’s stock exchange suspended trading for five days and canceled all trades executed on Wednesday, following a selloff that erased billions of dollars from the value of its main equities gauge after two devastating earthquakes.

Trading in Turkish equities, futures and option contracts was halted today and will resume on Feb. 15, according to a statement from Borsa Istanbul on Wednesday afternoon. It’s the first time in 24 years that the exchange has stopped trading.

Borsa Istanbul has also canceled trades that were executed on the morning of Feb. 8 before transactions were suspended, citing low trading volumes. Before those cancellations, the benchmark Borsa Istanbul 100 Index had erased $35 billion in value and was headed for its worst weekly performance since the 2008 global financial crisis.

Bloomberg