Circuit Breaker: The Bourgeoisie's Exchange Does Not Even Trust Itself

Dear Young Comrades,

Yesterday afternoon a button was pressed at Borsa Istanbul. Its name is "circuit breaker." An automatic mechanism that temporarily halts trading when prices fall at a certain speed. A brake the market puts on itself; a brake it puts because it does not trust itself.

This morning at eight the Treasury minister gathered his team. At nine fifty-one the Central Bank opened the money tap to the banks. Before noon the Capital Markets Board (SPK) shut 130 funds and imposed bans on 38 people. And the evening before, the prosecutor's office opened an investigation into a post the former chair of Borsa Istanbul had put up saying "stay calm."

This piece tells that twenty-four hours. But not only to tell it. To show three things:

One: which part of the machinery that came into view this week is unlawful, and which part is legal but not legitimate. Two: that this is not the first time; that the same pattern has repeated at least ten times in the exchange's forty-year record. Three: that the bourgeoisie does not even itself trust this market it founded, runs by its own rules, and has its own state supervise — and who pays the price of that distrust.

From Yesterday to This Morning: Hour by Hour

Time	What happened
16 September, session	BIST 100 meets sharp selling during the day; the circuit breaker kicks in. Close: 13,122.58 points, a 5.54 percent fall — the sharpest loss in four months after the 6.05 percent on 21 May. 95 of 100 shares fall; 17 shares at the daily floor. The financial index loses 6.75 percent, industry 5.79 percent, technology 5.19 percent.
16 September, evening	The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office opens an investigation of its own motion into former Borsa Istanbul chair İbrahim Mustafa Turhan. Ground: a social-media post that would "create fear and panic among investors." The content of the post: "Stay calm… the one who acts in panic does the greatest harm to themselves."
16 September, USA	The Fed raises rates for the first time since 2023 (3.75–4 percent); a signal of one further rise within the year. The Dow falls 600 points.
17 September, 08:00	The Financial Stability Committee meets under Mehmet Şimşek. Statement: "There is no fundamental or structural risk to the functioning of Borsa Istanbul and our capital markets"; the problem is "in certain funds of a limited number of portfolio management companies," "temporary and manageable."
17 September, 09:51	The CBRT announces three steps: weekly repo-auction funding will be increased; banks' borrowing limits from the CBRT will be raised according to balance-sheet size; collateral haircut rates will be lowered — that is, banks will be able to take more money against the same paper.
17 September, open	BIST 100 starts the day 1.32 percent down at 12,948 points; then turns. During the day it rises as far as 13,450, more than 2 percent in the plus. The locomotive: the banking index 5.86 percent up.
17 September, noon	The SPK, by decisions numbered 57/1706 and 57/1707, puts 130 funds of seven portfolio companies into liquidation (Pardus 42, Hedef 31, Atlas 16, Bulls 15, Pusula 12, A1 9, Tera 5); all of these companies' funds on TEFAS are closed to buying and selling. 38 people receive a two-year trading ban and a criminal complaint; ten people's licences are cancelled. The same board cuts the minimum equity maintenance ratio on margin trades from 35 percent to 20 percent (until 2 October).
17 September, afternoon	The SPK bulletin discloses the share portfolios of the funds in liquidation: the funds hold 77.74 percent of the free float of TEHOL, 68.14 percent of ANELE, 60.13 percent of TRHOL, 54.68 percent of PEKGY (1.6 billion shares).

Read this table once more and see the order: First the brake. Then an investigation of the commentator. In the morning, liquidity to the banks. At noon, a lock on the small investor's fund. And the same day the banking index 5.86 percent up.

This is not a chronology; it is an order of priority.

Exposure: What Is Claimed to Be Unlawful, What Is Certainly Legal

In this section we will keep two columns. Because when "unlawfulness" is said, two different things are most often mixed: the breaking of the law, and the plunder the law permits.

What is claimed to be illegal

All of it is at the stage of allegation; the presumption of innocence applies. But the claims are public and have entered the prosecutor's file:

Market fraud (Capital Markets Law no. 6362, art. 107). The prosecutor's office alleges that in the Tera Yatırım and Pusula Portföy relationship, "artificial demand" was created by trades "remote from rational economic grounds." The law provides for three to five years' imprisonment. The SPK filed a criminal complaint for 38 people.

Embezzlement, fraud, breach of trust. Pusula Portföy chair of the board Muhammet Yarız was detained on 13 September on these suspicions; a freeze was placed on his assets. It was alleged that he left his telephone at the office and crossed to Greece by boat from Marmaris; he later announced that he had gone to the prosecutor's office in Bodrum of his own accord. A travel ban on Serdar Turhan of Katılımevim; judicial control on Altunç Kumova of Destek Yatırım.

Information-based manipulation. On 9 September, with the "bySerez" file, an allegation of steering nine shares (EYGYO, AHGAZ, TERA, BVSAN, A1CAP, SNICA, KAYSE, OBASE, SOKE) through social media; on 13 September a separate investigation into "accounts spreading false/misleading information."

The piercing of the qualified-investor requirement. Free funds may under the rules be sold only to a "qualified investor" (assets above one million lira). In the funds in liquidation there are more than 514,000 investors. There is no good reason to believe they are all millionaires. This is not even an allegation; it is a simple arithmetic question, and no one has yet answered it.

What is certainly legal

Now the real list. No one will be detained for any of these, because they are all inside the legislation:

A fund holding three quarters of the free float. 77.74 percent in TEHOL. This is possible by definition of "free fund" status: there is no concentration limit. A fund may be in practice the sole buyer and sole seller of a publicly listed company; it sets the price as well. Legal.

Halting payment by saying "net asset value could not be calculated." The fund cannot state its value because the share it holds is stuck at the daily floor, and it falls into default. The legislation foresaw this; a filing to KAP is enough. Legal.

Unilaterally changing the payment rule. Tera moved pricing in six funds to once a month, and payment to ten business days later. The investor was not asked; a prospectus amendment is enough. Legal.

Marketing with a 20 percent monthly return "target." According to what Nefes reported, the funds were offering this rate. Legal so long as "guarantee" is not said.

Supervision waiting eleven months. In October 2025 the SPK had fined Pusula's managers 8.9 million lira each for Vişne Madencilik trades. The mechanism was on the regulator's desk. The fine was issued; the funds continued to operate. Fund size 826 billion lira; the fine smaller than one hundred-thousandth of that. Legal.

Easing the large player's collateral on the day of the crisis. The investor who buys shares on margin (with debt) must top up collateral when the share falls; if they cannot, the position is sold by force. The SPK cut the ratio from 35 percent to 20 percent: the forced sale was postponed. Legal.

Opening cheap liquidity to the banks on the morning of the crisis. The CBRT's three steps are for the banks. Not for the fund investor. The banking index rose 5.86 percent the same day. Legal.

Opening an investigation of the one who says "stay calm." CML art. 107/2 makes "creating a false impression" an offence. The prosecutor's office applied this, the day after the fall, to the former exchange chair's "do not panic" post. The reflex awaited for eleven months for the inflated funds arrived overnight for a tweet. Legal.

Now put the two columns side by side. Those in the left-hand column may send a few people to prison. Those in the right-hand column are the structure itself and will stay in place. The Marxist gaze does not look for the "bad actor"; it asks about the structure in which the bad actor is possible, even rewarded. The exposure of unlawfulness is necessary; but what most needs exposing is for whom the law itself is written.

Forty Years' Record: This Is Not the First Time

The best test of the sentence "temporary and manageable" is history. Borsa Istanbul (formerly the ISE) opened on 3 January 1986 with 19 shares. From that day to this:

Date	Event	What happened	Who paid the bill
11 November 1998	The Korkmaz Yiğit tapes	Audio recordings of the politics–mafia–capital relationship around the Türkbank tender were published; the ISE fell 14.92 percent in a day.	The small investor; Türkbank passed to the public
November 2000 – February 2001	The twin crisis	The "constitution booklet" crisis at the National Security Council on 19 February 2001: 14.62 percent; on 21 February 2001, the day before the switch to a floating exchange rate, 18.11 percent — the sharpest daily fall in the exchange's history. Overnight rates rose to 7,500 percent.	Real wage loss overnight, workplaces shut; public resources transferred to the banks through the TMSF
July 2003	İmar Bankası	The Uzan Group's bank: unrecorded deposits, unauthorised treasury-bill sales, the promise that "one lira becomes two in a year." In the first five months 616 trillion lira in unrecorded deposits, 728 trillion lira in bill sales.	The state paid about 914 million lira to 22,145 depositors through Ziraat; that is the public, that is the waged taxpayer. Cem Uzan went to France.
22 March 2021	Ağbal's dismissal	An overnight decree; foreign-investor exit, a circuit breaker on the exchange.	Exchange-rate shock, inflation; the bill was written onto the wage
August–September 2022	Public-bank shares	Prices of Halkbank, Vakıfbank, TSKB, Şekerbank shares multiplying within weeks; buying whipped up by more than 51,000 comments on investor forums. The academic study's finding: the small investor bought on the rise and could not sell on the fall.	The small investor
2023–2025	The IPO wave	Every offering "one lot for everyone"; millions of new accounts; prices collapsing after the offering. MKK: 6.8 million investors, three quarters with portfolios under 50,000 lira.	Those newly entered
November 2025 – April 2026	The "Owl" file	Order-based manipulation in PAMEL and INVES shares; a three-layer organisation as "bag-carriers / payroll staff / those in business relations"; 57.4 million euros + 15 million dollars in proceeds of crime; an allegation that 788 million lira was laundered in 2021 through the Asset Peace; TMSF trusteeship of 24 companies; 41 defendants, prison demands of up to 34 years.	In the indictment's own words, "small investors"
November 2025	Uşak Seramik	Pumping on social media, sale from the top, panic with negative news; six detentions.	The small investor
January 2026	KIMMR	A coded post on Twitter ("Whooo's with me"); 252.89 percent in 50 days; 15.28 million lira in unjust gain; 17 detentions.	The small investor
September 2026	The fund earthquake	Seven companies, 130 funds, 826 billion lira, 514,000 investors; circuit breaker; collateral easing; liquidity to the banks.	Your turn

Look at the table. At least ten events in forty years; the method changes — cassette, exchange rate, bank, forum, tweet, fund — but the last column does not. Every time, the same class pays the bill. And every time the same sentence: "There is no structural risk; there were a few bad actors."

See this as well: in 2001 the banks were rescued through the TMSF, in 2003 the İmar depositors through the Treasury, in 2026 the banks through the CBRT. Capital was rescued every time; the rescue money came every time from the public, that is from us. They do not call this "socialism"; but that it is socialism for capital and the market for labour is plain.

The Problem of Trust: Does the Bourgeoisie Trust Its Own Exchange?

The exchange is the bourgeoisie's own invention. Its governments wrote the capital-markets law, its bureaucrats founded the SPK, its banks run Borsa Istanbul. The rules are their rules; the referee is their referee.

So do they themselves trust this established order? Let us look at the evidence:

The existence of the circuit breaker. A system that truly believed the claim that "the market finds the right price" would not halt the finding of the price. The circuit breaker is the official admission that the market can destroy itself. Yesterday it kicked in for the third time this year.

The Financial Stability Committee meeting at eight in the morning. An emergency meeting of the Treasury, the Central Bank, the BRSA, the SPK and the TMSF is not required for a situation of which "there is no structural risk" is said. The meeting itself is the contradiction of the statement.

The Central Bank opening liquidity to the banks. Why should the problem of "a limited number of portfolio companies" require emergency money for the entire banking system? Because the banks are the sellers, intermediaries, lenders and probably partners of those funds. The CBRT knows best that the problem is not "limited."

The stance of foreign capital. According to MKK data the foreign share of the equity market is 36.78 percent. In March 2021, when the Central Bank governor was changed by an overnight decree, foreign funds left within days. International capital does not "invest" in the Turkish exchange; it "visits"; it chooses the chair nearest the door.

The investigation of the former exchange chair. Turhan is a former AKP MP, a former CBRT deputy governor, a former chair and CEO of Borsa Istanbul. That is, one of the architects of this order. He is being investigated for saying "stay calm." The system telling even its own man "do not speak" shows on how thin a sheet of ice trust stands.

And most important: where they keep their own money. What stands out in the fund-earthquake table is who exited from the top. The one who founded the fund, inflated the share, sold to the related company — their money is not in the fund; it left every round. The bourgeoisie does not trust its own exchange; it uses it. The one who trusts, who says "let a professional manage it," is the wage-earner.

Marx, in the third volume of Capital, describing the credit system, says this: in times of plenty every paper circulates as if it were money; in the moment of crisis everyone wants real money at once, and that is when the paper is revealed to be paper. This week's sentence "net asset value could not be calculated" is that moment translated into the language of KAP. The bourgeoisie knows this moment; it need not have read Marx; it has lived 1998, 2001, 2003. Because it knows, it sits near the door.

Class Effect: How the Bill Is Cut Downwards

Now to the real question. How do these events affect class? Through four channels.

Channel 1: Direct loss — savings

MKK data (March 2026): 6,819,485 investors; 23.26 percent have portfolios under 1,000 lira, 72.37 percent under 50,000 lira; only 0.56 percent above one million lira. According to a claim by an MP (Özgür Karabat) for which there is no independent verification, 30,574 qualified investors hold about 80 percent of market assets.

The fund investor is the most cautious slice of this pool: the one who admits they do not know how to pick shares and entrusts them to "the expert." Severance pay, a retirement bonus, wedding money. This week that money entered a liquidation "whose method will be determined by the Board." Liquidation means selling the share at the floor now, at a low price. The loss will be locked in. Those who exited from the top have already left.

Channel 2: Indirect loss — wages and employment

The Fed's rate rise and the domestic fund crisis force the CBRT to stay tight. The name of tight money policy is "disinflation"; its working is a credit squeeze, a demand squeeze, the closing of businesses, a rise in unemployment and the suppression of wage increases. The broad-definition unemployment gap we wrote of in TÜİK: Two Figures, One Country: 8.1% and 30.6% is a product of this programme. A worker who does not hold a single lot on the exchange pays this crisis's bill as well: in the pay rise, in the layoff, in credit-card interest.

Channel 3: The cost of rescue — the public

The CBRT opened cheap liquidity to the banks. This is not a costless operation; it is written onto the Central Bank's balance sheet, from there onto inflation, from there onto the wage. In 2001 the TMSF, in 2003 the Treasury, in 2026 the CBRT. Rescue is done every time with public resources, and public resources are the resources of the wage-earner whose tax is withheld from the wage. In Turkey the weight of tax revenue is on indirect taxes and withholding on wages; capital gains are taxed at the lowest rates, sometimes at zero. That is, the capital that is rescued, the labour that rescues.

Channel 4: Disorganisation — ideology

This is the most invisible but the most lasting effect. The discourse of "let everyone be an investor," "capitalise your savings," "one lot for everyone" detaches the wage-earner from their own class and binds them to the identity of "investor." As a worker you have no voice; but as an "investor" you have the right to look at the price table. This identity directs the worker to forums instead of the union, to the "buying opportunity" instead of the strike. And when the crisis comes the "investor" has no organisation; 514,000 people wait one by one for a KAP announcement.

That the capital market was founded in 1981, eleven months after the unions were shut, was not a coincidence. Labour's collective bargaining power was taken; in its place the individual "investor" was put. In 12 September: The History, Balance Sheet, and Present of a Class Coup we wrote what the coup demolished; the exchange is one of the things the coup built.

Two Columns: The Same Twenty-Four Hours, Two Classes

	The wage-earner / small investor	Capital / the large player
16 September session	In the share at the floor, cannot sell	Most have exited from the top; what remains is leveraged
16 September evening	Even the one who says "stay calm" is investigated; channels of information narrow	Lawyers, KAP filings, a "default" notice
17 September 08:00	Not mentioned on the committee's agenda	The committee meets for it: "no structural risk"
17 September 09:51	Nothing for them from the CBRT	Liquidity to the banks, the collateral haircut lowered
17 September noon	The fund put into liquidation, the payment date unclear	Collateral ratio 35 percent → 20 percent, the forced sale postponed
17 September close	Cannot reach their money	The banking index 5.86 percent up
Historical counterpart	1998, 2001, 2003, 2021, 2022, 2025, 2026 — the one who pays every time	2001 TMSF, 2003 Treasury, 2026 CBRT — the one rescued every time
Legal name	"Investor" — the risk is their own	"Suspect" — presumption of innocence, the right of defence, time

The right-hand column is what is "manageable." The left-hand column is what is "temporary." The committee is right: the problem is temporary and manageable for capital. For labour it is lasting and unmanageable; because the organisation that would manage it has been taken from their hands.

So What Is to Be Done?

We will not say "do not enter the exchange"; it is not for us to give a moral lesson to the one left helpless against inflation. There are things to be done, and they are all collective.

This week

Reach acquaintances who have money in the funds. Tell them to follow the KAP and SPK announcements, to keep their transaction documents, and to act together, not alone. The method of liquidation has not yet been announced; when it is, there will be a large difference between an organised investor group and 514,000 scattered people. The İmar Bankası depositors received payment because they organised; do not forget this.
Document the loss. Who, when, into which fund, how much, and who persuaded: a bank branch, an "adviser," a YouTube channel, a Telegram group? This document is raw material both for the legal process and for political exposure.
Watch the direction of the investigation. To whom are the prosecutor's "panic-creating post" investigations opened, and what is happening to those who inflated the funds for eleven months? Keep these two lists side by side and publish them in public form.

Demands

Small-investor priority in liquidation. Those with small portfolios paid first and in full; the adaptation of worker-claim priority in insolvency law to the fund market. Legally possible; it must be demanded politically.
Personal and unlimited liability of the founders. If the fund's assets do not suffice, the difference to be met from the assets of the portfolio company's partners, the related companies, and the intermediary banks. Former SPK legal counsel Şanlı Baş says this is possible; what is possible must be demanded.
Withdrawal or equalisation of the collateral easing. The breath granted to the large player either granted to everyone — the liquidation price not the floor price but the average of the last six months — or to no one.
A condition on CBRT liquidity. The cheap money opened to the banks on the morning of the crisis be tied to the condition of payment to the victims of the funds those banks sold. Public resources not be given unconditionally.
Labour representation on the SPK and the Financial Stability Committee. On these boards "investor representation" is discussed; labour organisations are not even discussed. Those who pay the bill must have a chair at the table.
Taxation of capital gains. If the rescue money comes from indirect tax and wage withholding, the rescued party's gain should be taxed as well. This is the most concrete way of shifting the load on the wage-earner's back onto capital.

Collective alternatives

Data commons, now. The SPK bulletin disclosed the share portfolios of the funds in liquidation. This data is open but unprocessed. A concrete project for a group of young comrades: to put the shares held by 130 funds, the change in those companies' employee counts, and related-party transactions into a single public table. When knowledge is a commons it becomes a weapon. The kind of work we described in The Computing Worker's Handbook.
Collective forms of small savings. The cooperative, the solidarity chest, the mutual-aid fund. They do not promise 20 percent a month; they promise security and autonomy. This week 514,000 people learned the price of 20 percent. Our piece Albatros Computing Cooperative and Software Cooperativism 101 is the beginning of this discussion.
Take the identity back. You are not an "investor"; you are a wage-earner. You have the right to look at the price table; but your real right is at the collective-bargaining table. Do not tell a friend newly entering the exchange "you will lose"; tell them what they bought: a claim written on future surplus-value, the exit liquidity of the one sitting nearest the door. There is a class difference between entering knowing this and entering not knowing it.

Dear Young Comrades,

The circuit breaker is the confession that the market does not trust itself. The Financial Stability Committee, by saying "there is no structural risk," announces that its meeting is unnecessary, and meets. The Central Bank opens money to the entire banking system for a "limited" problem. The prosecutor's office investigates the one who says "stay calm."

None of this is inconsistency. All of it says the same thing: the bourgeoisie does not trust its own exchange; it uses it. It need not trust it, because it knows that when it loses it will be rescued. It was rescued in 1998, in 2001, in 2003, in 2021, in 2026.

The one who trusts, who says "let a professional manage it," is the wage-earner. And that trust has for forty years been rewarded in the same way every time: a paper locked at the floor, a liquidation "whose method will be determined," and a statement that is "temporary and manageable."

Dear young comrades, if a single thing is to remain from this piece, let it be this:

In an order in which capital does not even trust its own institutions, labour's trusting those institutions is not a mistake; it is a trap. The name of the way out of the trap is not "better investment"; it is organisation.

When you look at the price table, see who drew the table. When you look at the circuit breaker, ask who pressed the button. And when you hear the sentence "there is no structural risk," ask whose structure is being spoken of: in our structure there are 514,000 households; in theirs, seven companies and a committee.

Comradely.

Knowledge belongs to everyone.

Sources

From yesterday to this morning

Forty years' record

Theory

Karl Marx, Capital, Volume III, Part Five (the credit system, fictitious capital, "scarcity of money" at the moment of crisis)
David Harvey, The New Imperialism (accumulation by dispossession)