By Tuba Sahin
ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day with a 1,252.70-point hike to reach a historic high of 96,400.03 points on Monday.
The BIST 100 index of the largest listed companies in Istanbul advanced by 1.32 percent with a total trading volume of 5 billion Turkish liras ($1.4 billion).
On the first transaction day of the week, the banking and holding sector indexes surged by 1.41 percent and 0.47 percent, respectively.
Among all sectors, the tourism index was the best performer with an increase of 3.23 percent while the sport sector was the worst, falling by 1.22 percent.
Stocks of Sasa Polyester Sanayi (SASA), a leading polyester producer, performed best on Monday -- up by 20 percent. Shares of Besiktas (BJKAS), one of the prominent Turkish sports club, saw the largest decline of the day, falling 3.79 percent.
The five most traded stocks were private lender Garanti, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, mobile operator Turkcell, state lender Vakifbank and Sasa Polyester.
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate slipped to 3.5570 Turkish liras as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) on Monday, compared with 3.6110 Turkish liras at Thursday's close.
Borsa Istanbul's Gold Exchange index increased by 0.90 percent while the price of gold per kilogram fell to 144,000 Turkish liras (around $40,335) as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT).
Turkey and Russia Monday agreed to remove restrictions on bilateral trade that had been placed after the shooting down of a Russian military jet in 2015.
Turkey’s gross debt stock -- the outstanding debt of public sector institutions, the Central Bank, private companies and households -- stood at 794.5 billion Turkish liras (around $223.4 billion) at the end of April, the Treasury said Monday.
The number of new companies launched in Turkey was almost 10 percent higher annually in April, the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) said in a report released Monday.