Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up 1.6 pct at close

By Dilara Zengin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed the first day of the week up 1.6 percent, hitting 105,214.87 points on Monday.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index gained 1,655.89 points from Friday's close of 103,558.98 points with a total trading volume of 5 billion Turkish liras (nearly $1.3 billion).

The banking and holding sector indices rose 2.30 and 1.94 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the basic metal sector index was the top performer -- up 5.19 percent -- while the telecommunication sector index fell the most -- going down 1.23 percent.

The stocks of private lender ICBC Turkey Bank performed best, gaining 7.46 percent. Telecommunication giant Turk Telekom's stocks were the worst performer, falling 2.26 percent.

The top five most-traded stocks were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, defense giant Aselsan, private lenders Garanti, another lender Isbank and iron and steel producer Karabuk Kardemir.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate slipped to 3.8970 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Monday, down from 3.9250 at Friday's close.

The dollar/lira rate, which soared to a historic high of nearly 4 liras last month, fell below 3.90 after Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had not given any orders to put restrictions on capital movement abroad.

The euro/lira exchange rate also decreased to 4,6180, down from Friday's close of 4.6600.

The BIST Gold Exchange index lost 0.12 percent in value, while the price of gold per kilogram rose to 161,682 Turkish liras (around $41,485) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT), compared with Friday's closing price of 161,500 Turkish liras (around $41,092).

As of 6.30 p.m. local time (1530GMT) Monday, the price of brent oil was $62.81 per barrel, compared with $63.73 of previous close.

On Monday, Turkish Statistical Institute announced that Turkey's inflation rate went up 1.49 percent in November while the annual inflation rate stood at 12.98 percent.