Turkish shares up at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the week with a 633.28-point increase to stand at 81,524.32 points on Friday.

The BIST 100 index advanced 0.78 percent with a total trading volume of 5.9 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.56 billion), a day after the historical volume record of all times with 8.1 billion liras on Thursday.

On the last trading day of the week, the banking sector declined by 0.46 percent and became the worst performer of the day while the holding index increased by 1.53 percent. Among all sector indices, the construction sector index rose the most, with a 2.72 percent.

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

Shares of Vakif GYO, a state-run real estate investment trust, enjoyed a 10.30 percent rise -- the highest of the day -- while Ihlas Holding shares were down by 3.45 percent, the biggest drop of the day.

The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index fell by 0.58 percent in value, with gold trading at 146,430 Turkish liras (around $38,669) per kilogram as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was flat at 3.7860 as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) Friday, compared to 3.7890 in Thursday's closing session.

Turkish central bank cut the borrowing limits of banks, in the Interbank Money Market, to a total of 11 billion Turkish liras (approx. $2.9 billion) starting from Jan. 16, according to a statement on Friday.

The bank's action, as a continuing effort to support the value of Turkish lira, came after the decision of cancellation of the one-week repo auction to cut the amount of lira circulating in Turkish markets.

On Friday, the bank also announced that the Turkish private sector’s short-term foreign debt – debt that must be paid in the next 12 months – decreased by $4.1 billion in Nov. 2016 to $16.4 billion from the end of Dec. 2015.