Behind the 40,000% Stock Surge That’s Mystifying Traders in Turkey

At first, it was just a curiosity in Turkey’s financial circles: An obscure brokerage firm with a stock that went up and up.

As the months went by last year, though, the gains in shares of Tera Yatirim Menkul Degerler AS just kept coming, over and over, in staggering amounts — 54%, 108%, 61%, 73%. Even in Turkey, long a hotbed of speculative manias, the sheer pace and scope of the surge — now totaling almost 40,000% since Tera’s 2022 initial public offering — stunned investors and sparked a fascination with the financial alchemy that seems to have powered it.