Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed Thursday with a 0.18 percent hike to stand at 109,153.91 points.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index rose 201.18 points from Wednesday's close at 108,952.73 points, with a 5.2 billion Turkish lira (nearly $1.5 billion) total trading volume.

Since the beginning of the year, the index has risen 40.3 percent.

On Aug. 7, the BIST 100 posted its highest close at 109,781.13 points, and reached its highest level of all time by hitting 110,232.52 points on Aug. 15.

On Thursday, the BIST banking index went up by 1.21 percent and the holding sector index decreased by 0.15 percent.

Among all sectors, the banking sector was the best performer while the BIST tourism index fell the most -- down 3.36 percent.

Stocks of Deva Holding, a pharmaceutical company, were the top gainer on Thursday -- up 8.05 percent -- and shares of poultry and feed producer Banvit (BANVT) suffered the largest decline of the day, falling 9.11 percent.

The BIST 100's most traded stocks were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines (THYAO), private lender Garanti (GARAN), energy company Zorlu Enerji (ZOREN), followed by defense giant Aselsan (ASELS) and tire manufacturer Goodyear (GOODY).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate stood at 3.4810 by 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Thursday, compared with 3.4970 at Wednesday's close.

Last Friday, one dollar was traded for 3.5230 Turkish liras. The exchange rate saw its historic high in mid-January this year climbing to around 3.94 Turkish liras.

Borsa Istanbul's Gold Exchange index fell 0.19 percent while the price of gold per kilogram also decreased to 144,200 Turkish liras ($41,377) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT), down from 145,200 Turkish liras ($41,482) at Wednesday's close.

The price of gold per kilogram was 146,800 Turkish liras ($41,691) at close on Friday, Aug. 18.