By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the first day of the week with a 187.37-point hike to reach 81,711.69 points on Monday.
The BIST 100 index advanced by 0.23 percent with a total trading volume of 4.7 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.24 billion), which follows the continuing high levels witnessed in the last two days of trading.
On the first trading day of the week, the banking sector declined by 0.66 percent while the holding index increased by 0.63 percent. Among all sector indices, the food beverage index increased the most with a 1.94 percent hike, and the real estate investment trusts index was the worst performer, falling 1.43 percent.
The most heavily-traded stocks were private lenders Garanti Bank and Akbank, the country's national flag carrier, Turkish Airlines, major cement producer Afyon Cimento, and state lender Halkbank.
Afyon Cimento shares also enjoyed a 8.53 percent rise -- the highest of the day -- while Emlak GYO, which operates in the real estate sector, saw a decline of 2.27 percent, the biggest drop of the day.
The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index rose by 0.62 percent in value, with gold trading at 145,850 Turkish liras (around $38,542) per kilogram as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT).
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was flat at 3.7840 as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) Monday, compared with 3.7860 in Friday's closing session.
The Central Bank of Turkey skipped its one-week repo auction on Monday, aiming to boost the Turkish lira by reducing the amount of local currency circulating in markets.
The one-week repo auction -- in which local banks borrow lira from the Central Bank -- was skipped for the third trading day in row as banks acted to stem the sharp decline in the value of the Turkish lira against other currencies.
On Monday, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced that Turkey's unemployment rate saw a 1.3 percentage increase in October 2016 compared with the same month in 2015.
The number of unemployed persons aged 15 and over rose to 3.65 million in October 2016, which is 500,000 more than a year earlier, pushing the unemployment rate to 11.8 percent, according to TurkStat.
Turkey’s government ran a 29.3-billion Turkish lira (approx. $7.81 billion) budget deficit last year, Finance Minister Naci Agbal said on Monday.
Budget expenditure for 2016 rose to 583.7 billion liras (some $155.6 billion), marking a 15.3 percent increase year-on-year.
Agbal said the amount was around one percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product, and 430 million Turkish liras ($114 million) less than the forecast for 2016.