The difference between nominal and real return
Nominal return tells you how much the number of lira in your account grew. Real return tells you how much you can actually buy with it. The two can drift a long way apart.
Nominal return
Nominal return is the percentage change in price in the local currency. A stock going from 100 lira to 130 lira has a nominal return of 30 percent. That figure is not wrong, but it is incomplete, because it ignores any change in the value of the lira itself.
Real return
Real return measures the same change in terms of purchasing power. If the general price level rose 40 percent over the same period, a 30 percent nominal return is a real loss. Calculating a real return requires a reference: an inflation index or an exchange rate.
Where the dollar return sits
A dollar-based return is a real-return approach that uses the USDTRY rate as its reference. It will not match a CPI adjustment exactly, but it is widely used in markets because it can be computed from daily data and allows comparison across countries.
Nominal and dollar return on the index
Over the past year the BIST 100's nominal (lira) return was +2.7% and its dollar return was -13.3%. The gap between them is the lira's depreciation against the dollar over the same period.
The figures in this section come from live data.
BIST 100 index chart in dollarsCan a real return be negative?
Yes. A nominal return can be positive while the real return is negative, meaning your money grew but what it buys shrank.
Is a dollar return the same as an inflation-adjusted return?
No. They use different references and give different results. Currency and inflation tend to move together over the long run but diverge over shorter periods.
The example figures in these guides update automatically with the end-of-day close. Not investment advice.