Turkey's Borsa Istanbul goes up at close

By Dilara Zengin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index was up 0.99 percent to close week at 116,637.94 points on Friday, with a total trading volume of 7.1 billion Turkish liras ($1.9 billion).

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index gained 1,146.74 points from Thursday's close of 115,491.19 points.

The banking and holding sectors indices rose by 0.78 percent and 1.36 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the tourism sector index was the top performer -- up 5.50 percent -- while the sport sector index was the sole loser, going down 0.08 percent.

The stocks of glass producer Trakya Cam performed the best, up 5.26 percent, while Turkey's public lender Halkbank's stocks were the worst performer, falling 3.47 percent.

The top five most-traded stocks were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, state-lender Halkbank, private lender Garanti, the country's leading petrochemicals producer Petkim and gold miner Koza Altin.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate declined to 3.7450 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Friday, down from 3.7680 at Thursday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate also dropped to 4.5060 by market close, compared with Thursday's close of 4.5500.

The BIST Gold Exchange index gained 0.38 percent in value with the price of gold per kilogram reaching 158,500 Turkish liras (around $42,324) as of 5.30 p.m. local time (1430GMT), compared with Thursday's closing price of 158,950 Turkish liras ($42,181).

As of 6.30 p.m. local time (1530GMT) Friday, the price of Brent oil was $67.70 per barrel, versus $68.07 at the previous close.