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Turkey Intervention Fails Again as Lira Sinks Toward 14 Mark

Customers wait outside a currency exchange agency near Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, on Dec. 2.

Customers wait outside a currency exchange agency near Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, on Dec. 2.

Photographer: Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images

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Turkish policy makers failed to arrest the lira’s freefall with their third intervention this month as the currency quickly resumed losses amid an interest-rate policy seen as too loose by markets. 

The monetary authority said Friday it sold foreign exchange because of “unhealthy” price formations, echoing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s words to describe the recent turbulence. While the lira rebounded briefly, it slid back closer to 14 per dollar, near levels that sparked all the three interventions.