Borsa Istanbul closes at record high

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark stock index rose 1,502.11 points to close at 98,867.90 points on Friday, hitting its all-time high.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index was up 1.54 percent with a total trading volume of 4.6 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.31 billion).

On the last transaction day of the week, the banking and the holding sector indexes surged 1.13 percent and 1.44 percent, respectively.

All sector indices gained value with the factoring and leasing sector index rising the most with 3.23 percent.

Stocks of Arcelik, a prominent electronics and domestic appliances manufacturer under major Turkish conglomerate Koc Holding, were the best performer on Friday -- up 5.97 percent -- while stocks of software producer Logo performed the worst, falling 1.04 percent.

The five most-traded stocks were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, private lender Garanti, Koc Holding, iron and steel producer Eregli and telecommunications giant Turkcell.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate dropped to 3.5150 Turkish liras as of 6 p.m. (1500GMT) on Friday, down from 3.5410 Turkish liras at Thursday's close.

Borsa Istanbul's Gold Exchange index was up 0.56 percent, while the price of gold per kilogram rose to 143,300 Turkish liras (around $40,803) as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT).