Turkey's Borsa Istanbul goes down at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index was down 2.57 percent to 102,068.03 points with a 7.5 billion Turkish lira ($1.9 billion) trade volume at Tuesday's close.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index fell 2,691.71 points, down from Monday's close at 104,759.74 points, while the banking and holding sector indices were down by 3.25 and 1.36 percent, respectively.

On the second day of the week, all sector indices showed a decline, with BIST mining index the lowest, showing a 7.12 percent fall.

Stocks of telecommunication systems integration provider Netas (NETAS) were the top performer on Tuesday -- up 6.59 percent -- and shares of a real estate investment trust company Kiler GMYO (KLGYO) showed the biggest drop for the second consecutive day, down 16.29 percent.

Tuesday's top stocks with the highest trade volume were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines (THYAO), lenders Garanti (GARAN) and Halkbank (HALKB), defense company Aselsan (ASELS) and another private Akbank (AKBNK).

The USD/TRY rate was 3.9290 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Tuesday, compared with 3.8950 at Monday's close. Last week, the USD/TRY rate hit its all-time peak at around 3.97.

By market close on Tuesday, the euro/lira exchange rate also rose to 4.6730 from Monday's close at 4.6570.

The BIST Gold Exchange index fell by 0.12 percent while the price of a kilogram of gold was 163,450 Turkish liras ($41,603) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT) Tuesday, compared with 163,100 Turkish liras ($41,869) at Monday's close.

The price of Brent oil increased to $63.51 per barrel as of 6.30 p.m. local time (1530GMT) Tuesday, up from Monday's close at $63.17.