Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down nearly 1.5 pct at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed the day down 1,616.83 points to stand at 104,917.77 points with a trade volume of 5.8 billion Turkish liras (some $1.66 billion) on Tuesday.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index fell for a third consecutive trading day, down 1.52 percent from 106,534.60 points at closing on Monday, while the banking and holding sector indices went down 1.72 and 2.68 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the investment trust sector index declined the most with a 3.66 percent fall.

The BIST telecommunication index was the only one to rise on Tuesday, with a 0.37 percent hike, following the Scandinavian Telia AB's announcement that the company sold about 1.78 billion Turkish liras ($508 million) worth of stock in Turkey’s largest mobile operator, Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, in order to focus on its operations in the Nordics and Baltics.

Stocks of prominent textile manufacturer Mavi Giyim were the best performer, up 0.76 percent, and shares of energy company Turcas Petrol (TRCAS) saw the biggest fall on Tuesday, going down 6.67 percent - after seeing highest rise on Monday.

The BIST 100's top five most-traded shares were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, telecommunication giant Turkcell, iron/steel producer Kardemir Karabuk, followed by lenders Garanti and Halkbank.

Borsa Istanbul's Gold Exchange index went down 1.14 percent. The price of gold per kilogram rose to 146,300 Turkish liras ($41,958) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT) on Monday, down from 146,000 Turkish liras ($42,470) at Friday's close.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate increased sharply to 3.4930 by 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Tuesday, compared to 3.4660 at Monday's close.

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.