Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down at close

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day 1,080.14 points down on Thursday to stand at 95,114.06 points.

Borsa Istanbul’s BIST 100 index dropped by 1.12 percent while the total trading volume was 5.8 billion Turkish liras ($1.62 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate dropped to 3.5800 liras as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Thursday, compared with 3.5900 liras at Wednesday's close.

Borsa Istanbul's gold exchange index fell 0.34 percent while the price of gold per kilogram decreased to 140,850 Turkish liras (some $39,272) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT), compared with 140,000 liras (around $39,071) at Wednesday’s close.

The banking and holding indexes were down by 2.11 and 0.40 percent, respectively. The construction index was the best performer -- up 1.40 percent -- while the transport sector was the worst, with a decrease of 2.4 percent.

Shares of leading polyester producer SASA Polyester Sanayi (SASA) enjoyed the highest rise on Thursday with a 10.41 percent increase while the stocks of airline company Pegasus (PGSUS) suffered the largest decline, falling 5.50 percent.

The top traded stocks were private lender Garanti, national flag-carrier Turkish Airlines, prominent mobile operator Turkcell, state lender Vakifbank and the country's biggest petrochemical company Petkim.

Turkey’s current account deficit shrunk to some $3.1 billion in March, a fall of $666 million compared to the same month last year, according to a Thursday Turkish Central Bank report.

A top issue during the Turkish president’s visit to China next week will be the certification hurdles to Turkish exports, Turkey’s Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci said.

"China prolongs procedures on many issues. The country is reluctant on [importing] both food and agricultural products and industrial goods produced in Turkey," said Zeybekci.

The European Union has revised upwards its forecast for the Turkish economy along with warnings of high inflation plus domestic and external financial risks.

The Turkish economy's growth forecast has been modified from 2.8 to 3 percent for this year and from 3.2 to 3.3 percent for 2018, according to Thursday’s report released by the EU.

Turkish defense giant Aselsan has signed a tank upgrade deal worth some $125 million, according to a stock exchange filing on Thursday.

The contract with Turkey's Defense Ministry is for the upgrade of M60T battle tanks.

On Thursday, Turkey's Central Bank total reserves reached at $105.9 billion as of May 5, the bank announced.

The bank's total reserves, including gold reserves, increased by approximately $3.2 billion -- an increase of 3.1 percent -- compared with $102.7 billion on April 28, according to the Weekly Money and Banking Statistics.

Turkey received $1.7 billion in foreign direct investment in the first quarter of the current year, according to data revealed by the country’s central bank.

Foreign investment in Turkey increased 43 percent during the period of January-March this year, compared with the same months in 2016.

Turkey's auto production rose by 42 percent to over 400,000 vehicles in the first four months of 2017, compared with the same period last year, hitting a 10-year high, according to official data released