Turkey's Borsa Istanbul hits record high

By Dilara Zengin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day with an all-time high after going up 965.33 points on Friday to stand at 98,942.87 points.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index rose 0.99 percent with a total trading volume of 4.6 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.30 billion).

The banking and holding sector indices advanced by 1.33 percent and 0.90 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the mining sector index was the top gainer -- up 4.44 percent -- while the small-and-medium enterprises industrial index saw the biggest decline, going down 0.23 percent.

Stocks of Nurol GMYO (NUGYO), a real estate investment trust, were the top performer with an increase of 20 percent in value, whereas Otokar, a major defense industry firm part of Koc Holding, performed the worst, with its stocks falling by 3.14 percent.

The five most-traded stocks were private lenders Garanti, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, state lender Halkbank, miner Koza Madencilik and Turkish defense giant Aselsan.

At the close on Thursday, the BIST 100 was up 361.02 points or 0.37 percent to reach 97,977.54 points, with a total trading volume of 4 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.1 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate went down to 3.5280 as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) on Friday, compared with 3.5340 at Thursday's close.

Borsa Istanbul's Gold Exchange index fell by 1 percent while the price of gold per kilogram decreased to 145,500 Turkish liras (some $41,26) as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT).