Turkish shares down nearly 1.5 pct at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day with a 1136.27-point fall to stand at 76,618.20 points on Tuesday.

The BIST 100 index dropped sharply -1.46 percent- while the total trading volume of the benchmark index was around 3.5 billion Turkish liras (approximately $976 million), very high compared to last week's new year holiday inactivity.

On the second day of the week, the banking and holding sector indices decreased by 1.65 and 1.45 percent, respectively. Among all sector indices, the construction sector rose the most – 0.56 percent – while the transportation sector declined the most, 2.10 percent.

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

Sabanci Holding's company KordSA, producing cord fabric and tyre, enjoyed a 3.86 percent rise in its shares – the highest of the day – while shares of Pegasus, one of Turkey's top airline companies, suffered the largest decline with a 7.01 percent fall.

The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index rose 0.22 percent in value, with gold trading at 132,670 Turkish liras (some $37,005) per kilogram as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate increased steeply to hit a new record at 3.6050 during the day, and then stood at 3.5840 as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) Tuesday, compared to 3.5400 in Monday's closing session.

Analysts said that the sharp decline in the BIST 100 index and increase in the foreign exchange rate were related with the country's inflation figures above the expectations and annual export data revealed on Tuesday.

The annual rate of inflation rose to 8.53 percent in December from 7 percent in November, Turkish Statistical Institute said on Tuesday, adding the highest monthly increase was 7.33 percent in alcoholic beverages and tobacco.

Turkey’s exports decreased by 0.8 percent last year to $142.6 billion compared to 2015 amid fluctuations in parity and low petrol and commodity prices, according to data from the Exporters’ Assembly of Turkey (TIM) on Tuesday.

Despite 0.8 percent fall in exports last year, TIM data revealed that Turkey's share in global trade rose to 0.89 percent in 2016.

“We suffered a lot from parity, low commodity and petroleum prices, problems in Russia, Iraq, Libya and Syria this year. We lost almost $8.7 billion worth of exports in 2016 due to these problems only," said Mehmet Buyukeksi, TIM chairman.

On Tuesday, Turkey's Treasury borrowed 4.88 billion lira (approx. $1.38 billion) through two bond auctions, the first one was for five-year semi-annual bonds while the second was for nine-year semi-annual bonds.