By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day with a 293.2-point decline to reach 89,136.53 points on Tuesday.
The BIST 100 index was down by 0.33 percent with a total trading volume of 3.4 billion Turkish liras (or approximately $908 million).
On the second day of the week, the banking sector fell by 1.14 percent while the holding index was flat with a 0.08 percent hike.
Among all sector indices, the leasing factoring index was the top performer -- increasing 4.42 percent -- for the third trading day in a row while the SME industrial sector was the worst performer with a 1.90 percent drop.
The top five heavily-traded stocks were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, lenders Garanti and Halkbank, the country's major defense systems producer ASELSAN plus another lender Akbank.
Shares of TAV Airports Holding (TAVHL), Turkey's leading airport operator, were the top gainer of the day -- up 3.61 percent -- while a prominent commercial vehicle manufacturer Karsan (KARSN) saw the biggest drop of the day, falling 3.33 percent.
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was flat around 3.75. A dollar was worth 3.7480 liras as of 5.00 p.m. (1400 GMT) Tuesday, compared with 3.7460 at Monday's close.
The dollar traded for 3.7320 liras last Friday, March 10, after seeing a historic hike -- over 3.90 liras -- in mid-January.
The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index advanced 0.17 percent while the price of gold per kilogram slightly decreased to 145,203 Turkish liras (some $38,759) as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT), compared with 145,400 Turkish liras (around $38,795) at Monday's close.
On Tuesday, the Turkish Treasury borrowed 1.63 billion Turkish liras (some $435 million) from the domestic market in an auction.
Turkey's Treasury Undersecretariat announced that five-year floating rate notes (semiannually, re-open) with an interest rate of 4.95 percent term rate were among securities up for auction.