Turkish stocks down nearly 1.5 percent at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index went down 1.47 percent to 110,246.46 points at Thursday's close with a 7.7 billion Turkish lira ($1.98 billion) trade volume.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index dropped 1,648.08 points from Wednesday's close at 111.894,54 points. The benchmark index fell for third consecutive day, after posting its highest close ever at 114,165.67 points on the first day of the week.

The banking and holding sector indices were down by 1.88 and 1.11 percent, respectively. Among all sectors, the BIST mining index was the top gainer with a 2.49 percent hike and the chemical petrol plastic sector saw the largest decline on Thursday, going down 6.56 percent.

Stocks of Turkey's top oil refinery Tupras (TUPRS) suffered the biggest drop -- down 9.64 percent -- while shares of Migros (MGROS), one of the country's largest supermarket chains, performed the best with a 7.31 percent rise.

Thursday's most-traded stocks were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines (THYAO), defense company Aselsan (ASELS), Tupras (TUPRS), private lender Garanti (GARAN) and iron/steel producer Karabuk Kardemir (KRDMD).

The BIST Gold Exchange index advanced 0.47 percent, while one kilogram gold traded at 159,040 Turkish liras ($41.071) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT), down from Wednesday's closing price of 160,000 Turkish liras ($41.459).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate fell to 3.8700 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Thursday from 3.8760 at Wednesday's close, while one euro traded for 4.4960 liras -- stable compared with the same level at market close on Wednesday.

As of 6 p.m. local time (1500GMT) Thursday, the price of Brent oil was $63.85 per barrel, compared with Wednesday's close at $63.28