Turkish stocks down at Friday's close

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed the day at 109,600.53 points on Friday, down 1.98% from the previous close.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index started the day at 111,653.72 points. As of daily close, it lost 2,214.54 points from Thursday's close of 111,815.08 points.

During the day, it hovered between 108,774.74, points and 112,345.07 points.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was around 757 billion Turkish liras ($124 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 8.2 billion Turkish liras ($1.3 billion).

On the last transaction day of the week, six stocks on the index rose and 94 were down compared to Thursday.

The highest trading volumes were posted by national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, defense giant Aselsan, and an iron/steel producer Eregli Demir Celik.

An information technologies company Netas (NETAS) was the best performer, with its shares up 2.68%, while freezer manufacturer Klimasan dropped the most, losing 6.18%.

The price of one ounce of gold was $1,680.40 by market close, up from $1,638.00 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $47 per barrel as of 6 p.m. (1500GMT) on Friday.