Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down at close

By Dilara Zengin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed the week down 0.69 percent at 106,239.46 points on Friday.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index was down 737.22 points from Thursday's close of 106,976.67 points with a total trading volume of 6.5 billion Turkish liras (nearly $1.8 billion).

The banking and holding sector indices fell 2.27 and 0.19 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the transportation sector index was the top performer -- up 3.44 percent -- while the information technologies sector index suffered the biggest drop, down 4.94 percent.

The stocks of conglomerate Tekfen Holding performed best, up 6.65 percent, while private lender ICBC Turkey Bank's stocks suffered the most, falling 19.88 percent.

The BIST 100 top 5 most-traded stocks were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines (THYAO), defense giant Aselsan (ASELS), state lender Halkbank (HALKB), private lender Garanti (GARAN), and private lender Isbank.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate rose to 3,8890 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Friday, up from 3.8600 at Thursday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate also increased to 4,5880 by market close, up from Thursday's close at 4.5490.

The BIST Gold Exchange index gained 0.32 percent in value, while the price of gold per kilogram rose to 160,870 Turkish liras ($41,373) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT), compared with Thursday's closing price of 158,900 Turkish liras ($41.077).

As of 6.30 p.m. local time (1530GMT) Friday, the price of brent oil was $62.09 per barrel, compared with $61.36 of previous close.