Turkey Stocks are Worth Nibbling

According to the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate, also known as AFIRE, a recent study showed that the country of Turkey has the fourth best opportunity for real estate price appreciation of all countries around the world, up from ninth place the previous year. The country is ranked 15th in terms of Gross Domestic Product on a Purchasing Power Parity basis. Less that two months ago, Fitch raised the credit rating of Turkey to investment grade. The literacy rate is approximately 94%.

So what is the best way to invest in this growing country? WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has turned up ten different Turkish stocks available to US investors. The best way to invest with diversification is through an Exchange Traded Fund, the iShares MSCI Turkey Investable Market Index (TUR). The stocks in the ETF have an average price to earnings ratio of 11 and the fund pays a yield of 1.9%. The fund has had a 12.9% average annual return over the last three years.

The fund's three largest holdings are Turkiye Garanti Bankasi (GARAN), Akbank TAS (AKBNF), and Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. (HALKB). About 46% of the funds assets are in the financial services industry and almost 16% in industrials.

Another alternative which provides diversification is the Turkish Investment Fund (TKF), a closed end fund. Last year, the fund was up over 49%.

If you want do invest directly in a Turkish company, you should consider Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri (TKC), which trades at 12.7 times trailing earnings and 12.1 time forward earnings. The company is a provider of provides wireless telephone services, sports and news entertainment, Internet services, and other telecommunications services. Earnings for the latest reported quarter were up 1% on a 3.8% rise in revenues. The stock has $4.15 in cash per share.

If you want a free list of stocks based in Turkey, that you can download, sort, and update, go to WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

Disclosure: Author didn't own any of the above at the time the article was written.