Turkey's Borsa Istanbul closes week with fall

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed week down 502.53 points to stand at 107,741.70 points with a 4.4 billion Turkish lira ($1.28 billion) on Friday.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index fell 0.46 percent, from 108,244.22 points at closing on Thursday, while the banking and holding sector indexes went down 0.02 and 0.13 percent, respectively.

On the last trading day of the week, the investment trusts sector index increased the most with a 1.33 percent rise and the BIST telecommunication index fell 4.46 percent, biggest drop among all sector indexes.

On a weekly basis, the BIST 100 declined by 0.65 percent, compared to closing at 108,451.70 points last Friday, Sept. 8.

Last month, the index performed 3.64 percent monthly increase, climbed from closing at 106,147.43 points on Aug. 1, and saw its highest peak ever at 110,530.75 points on Aug. 28.

Since the beginning of this year, the BIST 100 has risen 38.56 percent, up from close of 77,754.46 points on Jan. 2 -- the first trading day of 2017.

Stocks of poultry and feed producer Banvit were the best performer on Friday, rose 11.45 percent, and shares conglomerate Dogan Holding, heavily involved in media and energy sector, saw the largest decline, down 3.92 percent.

The BIST 100's top five most traded shares were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, private lender Garanti, mining and energy company Ipek Dogal Enerji, followed by lenders Akbank and Halkbank.

Borsa Istanbul's Gold Exchange index was flat with a 0.06 percent drop. The price of gold per kilogram fell to 146,000 Turkish liras ($42,470) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT) on Friday, down from 146,800 Turkish liras ($42,395) at Thursday's close.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate stood at 3.4350 by 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Friday, fell from 3.4520 at Thursday's close, while the exchange rate was 3.4080 last Friday.

One dollar was traded for 3.51 on average last month, while the first eight months' average exchange rate was 3.61.

The USD/TRY rate saw sharp fluctuations after last year's defeated coup and climbed to its historic hike -- around 3.94 liras -- in mid-January this year.

According to Turkish Central Bank data, the dollar/lira rate was 3.02 on average last year and 2.71 on average in 2015.