Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up at close

By Dilara Zengin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day up 361.02 points Thursday to stand at 97,977.54 points.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index rose 0.37 percent with a total trading volume of 4 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.1 billion).

On the fourth transaction day of the week, the banking sector index was down 0.31 percent, while the holding sector index was advanced 0.68 percent.

Among all indices, the mining sector index was the best performer, up 7 percent, while the small and medium enterprises industrial index was the worst, down 1.44 percent.

Stocks of Aksa (AKSA), heavily involved in energy sector, were the top performer with an increase of 10.73 percent in value, whereas Galatasaray Sportif (GSRAY) performed the worst, with its stocks falling by 3.82 percent.

The five most-traded stocks were private lender Garanti, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, miner Koza Madencilik, Turkey's leading petrochemicals producer Petkim and major Turkish conglomerate Koc Holding.

At the close on Wednesday, the BIST 100 was down 715.02 points or 0.73 percent to reach 97,616.52 points, with a total trading volume of 5.2 billion Turkish liras ($1.47 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate slightly increased to 3.5340 Turkish liras as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) on Thursday, up from 3.5320 Turkish liras at Wednesday's close.

Borsa Istanbul's Gold Exchange index went down 0.36 percent, while the price of gold per kilogram rose to 146,250 Turkish liras (around $41,301) as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT).

On Thursday, Turkey's calendar-adjusted industrial production rose 6.7 percent in April compared to the same month last year, the Turkish Statistical Institute announced.