Borsa Istanbul goes down at close

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index went down 1.25 percent to close at 113,589.45 points on Wednesday, with a total trading volume of 7.1 billion Turkish liras ($1.87 billion).

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index lost 1,433.35 points, while the banking and holding sectors indices fell by 0.91 percent and 1.07 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the electricity sector index was the top performer -- up 1.59 percent -- while the transportation sector index performed the worst, declining 4.30 percent.

The stocks of automotive manufacturer Karsan Otomotiv performed the best, up 5.7 percent, while the stocks of leading petrochemicals producer Petkim suffered the most, falling 5.42 percent.

The top five most-traded stocks were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, Petkim, private-lender Garanti, Karsan Otomotiv, followed by iron and steel producer Kardemir.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira rate rose slightly on Wednesday to 3.7930 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT), up from 3.7610 at Tuesday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate dropped to 4.5520 by market close, compared with Thursday's close of 4.4870.

The BIST Gold Exchange index gained 0.61 percent in value, while the price of gold per kilogram reached 161,700 Turkish liras (around $42,620) as of 5.30 p.m. local time (1430GMT).

As of 7 p.m. local time (1600GMT) Wednesday, the price of Brent oil was $69.03 per barrel, versus $68.82 at the previous close.