Turkish stocks down at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day with a 1,081.48-point decline to stand at 89,870.68 points on Thursday.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index was down 1.19 percent with a total trading volume of 3.7 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate slightly increased to 3.6740 liras as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) Thursday, compared with 3.6630 liras at Wednesday's close.

One dollar was exchanged for 3.7310 liras last Friday, April 7, after seeing a historic hike -- around 3.94 liras -- in mid-January.

Borsa Istanbul's Gold Exchange index advanced by 0.96 percent while the price of gold per kilogram rose to 151,800 Turkish liras (some $41,364) as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT), up from 151,000 Turkish liras (around $40,110) at Wednesday's close.

On the fourth day of the week, the banking and holding sector indices fell by 1.68 and 1.01 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the telecommunication index was the best performer with an increase of 0.80 percent while the construction sector was the worst one, declining 2.94 percent.

Stocks of poultry and feed producer Banvit (BANVT) enjoyed the highest increase of the day with 8.56 percent rose, after seeing significant losses on the first three days of the week.

Shares in Turkish conglomerate Tekfen Holding (TKFEN) -- involved in oil, power generation, construction and infrastructure -- saw the largest decline on Thursday, down by 4.90 percent.

The five most-traded stocks were private lender Garanti, national flag-carrier Turkish Airlines, state lender Halkbank, followed by another private lender Akbank plus a major steel industry company Eregli Demir Celik.