Turkish stocks down at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index fell 213.55 points to 104,334.31 points at Thursday's close, with a 4.3 billion Turkish lira ($1.2 billion) trade volume.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index declined by 0.2 percent, down from Wednesday's close at 104,547.86 points, while the banking and holding sector indexes were down by 0.85 and 0.55 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the BIST telecommunication index was the top gainer, up 3.37 percent, while the BIST tourism index fell the most down 0.88 percent.

Stocks of lender ICBC Turkey Bank (ICBCT) continued to show the best performance for four consecutive days with a 12.30 percent hike and shares of the conglomerate Ihlas Holding (IHLAS) saw the biggest drop, falling 2.99 percent.

The BIST 100 stocks with highest trade volume were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines (THYAO), energy and mining company Ipek Dogal Enerji (IPEKE), iron and steel producer Kardemir Karabuk (KRDMD), state lender Halkbank (HALKB) and mobile operator Turkcell (TCELL).

The USD/TRY rate was at 3.5730 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) on Thursday, stable compared to Wednesday's close at 3.5710.

The BIST Gold Exchange index was up by 0.24 percent while the price of gold per kilogram was 146,740 Turkish liras ($41,065) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT) Thursday.