Turkish stocks down at close

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day down 112.56 points on Wednesday to stand at 94,522.34 points.

The Borsa Istanbul’s BIST 100 index dropped 0.62 percent. The total trading volume was 5.7 billion Turkish liras ($1.6 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was down to 3.5800 liras as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Wednesday, compared with 3.5970 liras at Tuesday's close.

Borsa Istanbul's gold exchange index fell 0.61 percent, with gold selling at 145,600 liras ($40,764) per kilogram as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT), down from 146,430 liras ($40,762) at Tuesday’s close.

The banking and holding indices fell 0.8 and 0.45 percent respectively and the transport index was the best performer with an increase of 2.47 percent. Mining was the worst-performing sector, falling 2.10 percent.

Stocks of steelmaker Cemtas Celik Makina climbed the most, rising 7.74 percent, while shares of Vestel, one of Turkey's leading electronics/appliances manufacturers, suffered the greatest slump, falling 3.69 percent.

The five most-traded stocks were in Turkey's flag carrier Turkish Airlines, lenders Garanti, Halkbank, and Akbank, and steelmaker Eregli.

The Turkish Central Bank also hiked its late liquidity window lending rate 0.50 percentage points Wednesday while leaving all other key rates on hold.

"Late liquidity window interest rates [4.00-5.00 p.m.]: Borrowing rate has been kept at 0 percent, while lending rate has been increased from 11.75 percent to 12.25 percent," said a bank statement.

The overnight lending rate -- the rate banks use to borrow from the Central Bank overnight -- was kept at 9.25 percent. The overnight borrowing rate, under which banks lend or deposit money to the Central Bank, also remained unchanged at 7.25 percent.