Turkey's benchmark stock index down at close

By Can Erozden

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed Thursday down 0.87 percent at 118,604.05 points with a 7.8-billion-Turkish lira ($2.08 billion) trade volume.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index went down 1,044.33 points, down from Wednesday's close at 119,648.37 points, while holding sector index lost 1.63 percent in value.

During the afternoon session on Thursday, Turkey's benchmark stock index climbed over 120,000 points for the first time.

Among all sector indices, the best performer was real estate investment trusts sector index -- up by 1.29 percent while the transportation sector index suffered the biggest fall -- down by 1.85 percent.

Turkish Industrial Development Bank (TSKB) was the top gainer of the day, rising 5.26 percent, while shares of daily Hurriyet Newspaper suffered the biggest drop of the day, losing 4.07 percent.

The five most traded stocks were Turkey's leading defense company Aselsan, flag carrier Turkish Airlines, private lender Garanti, state lender Halkbank and real estate investment trust Emlak Konut GMYO.

The U.S. dollar-lira rate dropped to 3.7190 as of 5.00 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Thursday, compared with previous day's closing rate of 3.7480.

However, the euro-lira rate went up to 4.6630 from Wednesday's close of 4.6360.

Additionally the BIST Gold Exchange index was up 0.59 percent, the price of gold per kilogram increased to 163,800 Turkish liras ($43,854) as of 5.00 p.m. local time (1400GMT), versus 162,200 Turkish liras ($43,286) on Wednesday.

The price of Brent crude oil rose to $70.87 per barrel as of 6.24 p.m. local time (1524GMT) Thursday, compared with Wednesday's close of $70.02.