Looking for an interesting currency idea among the developing nations (exotics as they are sometimes referred to)? Strategically, these two nations seem to be on completely different glide paths. The nation on the upward glide path is Turkey; the one on the downward glide (potential crash landing) path is South Africa. (A good general summary on South Africa you can find in The Wall Street Journal this morning.) 

Playing the lira against the rand is not a cross-rate available in the spot market for retail investors, but you can create this by creating your own cross. Buy USD/ZAR (South African Rand) and sell USD/TRY (Turkish Lira); with the magic of math, the USD cancels out and you have created a synthetic cross. 

Take a look at the chart below showing the Turkish lira-South African rand cross daily: Looks like the bottom is in, and may be tracing out an impulse pattern higher…