Turkish stocks down at close

By Dilara Zengin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day by decreasing 681.96 points on Thursday to stand at 106,735.56 points.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index declined 0.63 percent with a total trading volume of 5.6 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.58 billion).

The banking and holding sectors indexes fell 1.20 percent and 0.38 percent, respectively.

The mining sector index was the best performer, up 4.05 percent, while the transportation sector index performed the worst, down 2.26 percent.

The stocks of Tesco Kipa (KIPA), which operates supermarkets in major Turkish cities, enjoyed the biggest rise on Thursday, up 9.15 percent, while the stocks of IT company Kron Telekomunikasyon (KRONT) saw a 4.74 percent decrease, marking the biggest drop of the day.

The five most traded stocks were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, private lender Garanti, Turkish defense giant Aselsan, mining company Koza Madencilik and leading petrochemicals producer Petkim.

The BIST 100 was up 1,699.20 points or 1.61 percent to close at 107,417.52 points on Wednesday, with a total trading volume of 5.8 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.65 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate rose to 3.5290 Turkish liras as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) on Thursday, up from 3.5180 Turkish liras at Wednesday's close.

Borsa Istanbul's Gold Exchange index fell by 0.31 percent, while the price of gold per kilogram rose to 141,300 Turkish liras (around $40) as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT).