Turkish stocks down at close

By Dilara Zengin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day down 577.62 points Thursday to stand at 95,147.34 points.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index dropped by 0.60 percent with a total trading volume of 4.6 billion Turkish liras (some $1.2 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate increased to 3.6110 liras as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) on Thursday, compared with 3.5600 liras at Wednesday's close.

Borsa Istanbul's gold exchange index rose by 0.62 percent while the price of gold per kilogram also climbed to 147,680 Turkish liras (some $40,695) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT), compared with 141,500 Turkish liras (around $39,718) on Wednesday.

On the last trading day of the week, the banking and holding sector indexes went down by 0.60 percent and 0.31 percent, respectively.

The leasing and factoring sector was the best performer, rising by 0.74 percent, while the tourism index saw the biggest decline, falling 3.75 percent.

The stocks of conglomerate Metro Holding (METRO), which has stakes in tourism, food processing, real estate, mining, and energy sectors enjoyed the biggest rise on Thursday with a 4.39 percent hike, while the stocks of conglomerate Tekfen Holding (TKFEN) -- involved in oil, power generation, construction and infrastructure -- saw a 3.77 percent decrease, marking the biggest drop of the day.

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