Why look at the market in dollars?
A lira chart can be setting records while your purchasing power falls. The only purpose of looking in dollars is to separate those two things.
The unit of measure is itself changing
If a ruler gets shorter every year, whatever you measure appears to grow. Under high inflation and currency depreciation the lira behaves exactly that way. Measuring in dollars means switching to a ruler that moves less.
Foreign investors already see it this way
Returns for foreign funds in Borsa Istanbul are measured in dollars. The index's dollar level is the picture those investors see, and it drives much of their decision to buy or sell. The dollar chart shows you how a significant part of the market is reading things.
The limits of a dollar view
The dollar is not an absolute measure either — it has its own inflation and periodically strengthens against every currency. If all your spending is in lira, the dollar return alone is not a sufficient measure. Reading both charts side by side is the sounder approach.
The gap over the past year
Over the past year the BIST 100 moved +2.7% in lira and -13.3% in dollars. The index's dollar peak was $338.59 on 22 Jul 2024; today it sits 33.8% below that level.
The figures in this section come from live data.
BIST 100 index chart in dollarsIs the lira chart wrong?
No. The lira chart shows nominal return correctly. It simply does not tell you how much of that return came from the currency.
Wouldn't adjusting for inflation be better?
Adjusting by CPI is also valid and answers a different question. A dollar basis works with daily data and allows international comparison.
The example figures in these guides update automatically with the end-of-day close. Not investment advice.