The Turkish stock market was closed twice on Friday after a devastating crash, as the country faces snowballing inflation and a floundering economy. The Istanbul Stock Exchange (Borsa) halted trading of equities, equity derivatives, and debt repo transactions on Friday at two separate times as the country’s economic crisis reached a new level of alarm. The first instance occurred on Friday afternoon, after the exchange found itself down by as much as 7 percent. At 5:24 p.m. local time, trading resumed but was halted again when the Borsa Istanbul 100 index fell by 9.1 percent after just two minutes of operation. The immediate catalyst for the crash was an intervention by Turkey’s central bank, which has failed to mitigate inflationary pressures on the lira. The intervention follows from yet another rate cut ordered by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has insisted on low interest rates despite years of accelerating …