Turkish stocks down at close

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day down 436.55 points Wednesday to stand at 95,724.95 points.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index dropped by 0.45 percent with a total trading volume of 6.1 billion Turkish liras (more than $1.7 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate increased to 3.5600 liras as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) on Wednesday, compared with 3.5520 liras at Tuesday's close.

Borsa Istanbul's gold exchange index rose by 1.37 percent while the price of gold per kilogram also climbed to 141,500 Turkish liras (some $39,718) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT), compared with 141,700 Turkish liras (around $39,906) on Tuesday.

On the third day of the week, the banking sector index was up 0.10 percent while the holding index fell 1.05 percent.

The electricity sector was the best performer among all sector indices, rising by 1.78 percent, while the tourism index saw the biggest decline, falling 4.18 percent.

Stocks of Zorlu Enerji, one of Turkey's leading companies operating in energy industry, enjoyed the biggest rise on Thursday with a 4.20 percent hike, while the stocks of prominent sport club Galatasaray saw a 6.58 percent decrease, marking the biggest drop of the day.

The most-traded stocks were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, private lender Garanti, Turkish defense giant Aselsan, major iron and steel producer Kardemir and state lender Halkbank.