Turkey's Borsa Istanbul goes down at close

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed the day down 0.90 percent to reach 105,303.94 points on Wednesday.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index decreased 956.05 points from Tuesday's close of 105,303.94 points with a total trading volume of 5.4 billion Turkish liras (nearly $1.4 billion).

The banking sector index slipped by 1.57 percent, while the holding sector index fell by 0.92 percent.

Among all sectors, the textile, leather sector index was the top performer -- up 1.45 percent -- while the basic metal sector index suffered the biggest drop with 1.82 percent.

Shares of conglomerate Koc Holding’s defense company Otokar performed the best, up 5.65 percent, while Stocks of private lender ICBC Turkey Bank suffered the most, falling 3.66 percent.

The top five most-traded stocks were state lender Halkbank, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, private lender Garanti, iron and steel producer Karabuk Kardemir and private lender Akbank.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate decreased to 3.8500 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Wednesday, down from 3.8690 at Tuesday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate also slipped to 4.5470 by market close, down from Tuesday's close at 4.5800.

The BIST Gold Exchange index lost 0.55 percent in value, while the price of gold per kilogram decreased to 157,100 Turkish liras (around $40,797) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT), compared with Tuesday's closing price of 159,050 Turkish liras (around $41,391).

As of 6.15 p.m. local time (1515GMT) Wednesday, the price of brent oil was $62.04 per barrel, compared with $62.66 of previous close.