Turkish stocks down at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) – Turkey’s benchmark index slightly decreased by 0.21 percent at the close of the daily session on Wednesday.

The BIST 100 index fell 158.82 points to close at 76,208.97. The total trading volume of the country's stock exchange market was 4.5 billion Turkish liras (approx. $1.40 billion).

It index recovered from a decline of 2.37 percent to open at 74,561.69 points early morning, after the shock victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election.

On the third day of the week, the banking sector index rose 0.20 percent while the holding sector index was down 1.27 percent.

Among sector indices, the mining index advanced most -- by 2.45 percent -- while the biggest declines were seen in the communication index, which decreased by 1.33 percent.

The most heavily traded shares were in Garanti Bank, Turkish Airlines, Halkbank, Sabanci Holding and Akbank.

Shares of Alarko Holding saw the greatest percentage gain with an increase of 11.11 percent in value. Communication company Alcatel suffered a 10.51 percent fall, the largest of the day.

The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index rose 1.63 percent in value, with gold trading at 134,700 Turkish liras (some $41,994) per kilogram.

In currency terms, the value of the Turkish lira against the U.S. dollar dropped steeply to trade at 3.2090 compared to Tuesday's closing rate of 3.1720.

The exchange rate witnessed an historic high of 3.3041 early morning just after Trump’s electoral success was announced.

Analysts said investors would follow news from the U.S., particularly Fed members' speeches on Thursday.