Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day with a decrease of 358.41 points to stand at 88,679.04 points on Thursday.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index was down 0.40 percent with a total trading volume of 3.1 billion Turkish liras (approximately $835 million).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate increased to 3.7090 liras as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) Thursday, compared with 3.6960 liras at Wednesday's close.

The dollar traded for 3.6410 liras last Friday, March 31, after seeing a historic hike -- around 3.94 liras -- in mid-January.

Borsa Istanbul's Gold Exchange index advanced 0.38 percent while the price of gold per kilogram climbed to 149,550 Turkish liras (around $40,280) as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT), up from 148,178 Turkish liras (some $40,124) at Wednesday's close.

On the fourth day of the week, the banking and holding sector indices were down by 0.37 and 0.60 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the information technology index was the best performer of the day, with an increase of 0.93 percent, while the SME industrial sector was the worst, falling 1.74 percent.

Stocks of tire manufacturer Goodyear (GOODY) were the top gainer of Thursday -- up 8.33 percent -- while stocks of Aksa Enerji (AKSEN), operating in the energy sector, saw the biggest drop of the day, declining 2.30 percent.

The five most-traded stocks were lenders Garanti and Halkbank, tire manufacturer Goodyear, followed by national flag-carrier Turkish Airlines plus telecommunication systems integration provider NETAS.