The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that Turkey's lira plunged 7 per cent to a record low on Wednesday, a move traders said is a "strong signal" that Ankara is moving toward a freely traded currency. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe reports that the lira has come under increasing pressure since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was re-elected on May 28. It was trading at 23.23 against the U.S. dollar late Wednesday, bringing losses this year to nearly 20 per cent. For much of this year, authorities have taken a hands-on role in foreign exchange markets, using up tens of billions of dollars of reserves to hold the lira steady. The bank's net forex reserves touched a record low of negative $4.4-billion (U.S.) last month, after forex demand surged during the election process. Four traders said the decline in the central bank's forex and gold reserves had stopped as of last week, and that they could enter an upward trend, along with signs of the change in forex policies. The premium demanded by investors to hold the country's hard-currency bonds over safe-haven U.S. Treasuries widened again to 472 basis points after tightening nearly 200 bps in the second half of May, data from JPMorgan showed.