Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down over 1 pct at close

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed on Monday at 107,303.25 points with a decrease of 1.09 percent or 1,185.44 points with a trade volume of 5.3 billion Turkish liras ($1.43 billion).

The banking and holding sector indices were down by 3.12 and 0.69 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the textile and leather sector was the top performer -- up 1.81 percent -- while the banking sector index suffered the biggest drop, losing 3.12 percent.

Shares of telecommunication company Alcatel Lucent Teletas had the best performance of the day with a 4.57 percent rise, while private lender ICBC Turkey Bank was the worst performer, with its stocks falling 6.75 percent.

The top five traded shares of the BIST 100 were the national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, private lender Garanti, defense company Aselsan, state-lender Halkbank and gold miner Koza Altin.

The BIST 100 was up 0.05 percent, or 55.14 points, to close at 108,488.69 points on Friday with a trading volume of 6.2 billion Turkish liras ($1.68 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate climbed to 3.7060 by 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) on Monday, compared with 3.6790 at Friday's close.

Borsa Istanbul's Gold Exchange index decreased by 0.93 percent, while the price of gold per kilogram rose to 151,800 Turkish liras ($40,970) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT) on Monday, compared with 151,150 Turkish liras ($40,795) at the close on Friday.