Turkey's benchmark stock index down at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed Thursday down 0.46 percent at 117,110.25 points with a 6.6 billion-Turkish lira ($1.68 billion) trade volume.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index fell 541.05 points from Wednesday's close at 117,651.30 points. During the trading hours, the BIST 100 hovered between 117,072.02 points and 118,589.72 points.

On Thursday, 33 stocks in the BIST 100 were up, 61 were down, and six were flat compared with the previous close while the total market value of the listed shares in BIST 100 amounted to 734 billion Turkish liras ($187 billion) as of the daily close.

The BIST banking index showed the worst performance among all sector indices, going down by 1.26 percent while the wood paper printing sector index increased the most, up 2.38 percent.

Stocks of conglomerate Dogan Holding (DOHOL), showed the best performance on Thursday, rising 19.54 percent, and shares of energy and construction company Isiklar Enerji Yapi Holding (IEYHO) posted the worst performance with a five percent drop.

The BIST 100's most-traded listed companies were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, private lender Garanti, electronic appliances manufacturer Vestel, leading petrochemicals producer Petkim and gold miner Koza Altin.

The USD/TRY exchange stood at 3.9310 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) on Thursday. One dollar traded for 3.9290 liras at Wednesday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate rose to 4.8460 by market close, versus the previous close of 4.8280.

The BIST Gold Exchange index climbed 1.06 percent while one kilogram gold traded for 167,900 Turkish liras ($42,720) as of 5.30 p.m. local time (1430GMT), up from 166,300 Turkish liras ($42,243) at Wednesday's close.

As of 7 p.m. local time (1600GMT), the price of Brent oil stood at $69.02 per barrel -- hovering between $68.59 per barrel and $69.85 per barrel during Thursday.