Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day with a 416.48-point rise to stand at 82,779.25 points on Wednesday.

The BIST 100 index advanced by 0.51 percent with a total trading volume of 5.4 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.43 billion).

On the third day of the week, the banking and holding sector indices rose by 0.71 and 0.88 percent, respectively. Among all sector indices, the sports index increased the most with a 3.83 percent hike while the construction sector was the worst performer, falling 1.88 percent.

The most heavily-traded stocks were lenders Garanti Bank, Akbank, Halkbank, Is Bankasi, and the country's national flag carrier Turkish Airlines.

Besiktas, a prominent sports club and the country's 2016 football champion at super league, enjoyed a 8.33 percent rise -- the highest of the day -- while Afyon Cimento, which operates in the cement industry, suffered a fall of 4.13 percent, the biggest drop of the day.

The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index was flat with just a 0.08 percent decrease while gold was trading at 147,400 Turkish liras (around $38,973) per kilogram as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate increased slightly to stand at 3.7820 as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) Wednesday, compared with 3.7680 in Tuesday's closing session.