Turkish stocks down at close

By Dilara Zengin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day with a 299.40-point decline to reach 94,355.91 points on Tuesday.

BIST 100 index was down 0.32 percent with a total trading volume of 4.5 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.2 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate decreased 3.5400 liras as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) Tuesday, compared with 3.5480 liras at Friday's close.

Borsa Istanbul's Gold Exchange index went down by 1.03 percent while the price of gold per kilogram was 142,600 Turkish liras (some $40,243) as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT), down from 145,500 Turkish liras (around $40,928) at Friday's close.

On the first trading day of the week, the banking sector index dropped by 0.57 percent while the holding sector advanced by 0.05 percent.

Among all sectors, the leasing and factoring sector index was the best performer with an increase of 2.47 percent while the construction sector index declined the most, by 1.51 percent.

Shares of Gozde Girisim (GOZDE), a Turkish private equity firm controlled by food giant Ulker, advanced the most on Tuesday -- up 20 percent -- while stocks of Yatas Bedding, a bedding and furniture company, saw the largest decline, falling 2.87 percent.

The top traded stocks were private lender Garanti, major defense system producer Aselsan, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, private lender Halkbank, iron and steel producer Eregli and another private lender Akbank.

On Tuesday, Turkey’s year-on-year trade deficit rose by 15.8 percent in April to over $4.9 billion, according to a preliminary estimate revealed by the Customs and Trade Ministry.

Additionally, the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for Turkey’s manufacturing sector was 51.7 points in April -- the second-highest since December 2015, according to a report released by the leading financial analysis company, IHS Markit, in collaboration with Istanbul Chamber of Industry.

The combined net profits of Turkey’s banking sector also rose 65.02 percent to 13.5 billion Turkish liras ($3.8 billion) year-on-year in the first three months of 2017, the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency said in a report Tuesday.