Turkish stocks flat at close

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the week down 117.71 points Friday to stand at 94,996.35 points.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index dropped 0.12 percent with a total trading volume of 4.4 billion Turkish liras (about $1.12 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate slightly decreased to 3.5720 liras as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) on Friday, compared with 3.5800 liras at Thursday's close.

Borsa Istanbul's gold exchange index rose 0.93 percent while the price of gold per kilogram also climbed to 141,950 Turkish liras (some $39,720) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT), compared with 140,850 Turkish liras (around $39,272) at Thursday’s close.

The banking and holding indices fell 0.44 and 0.01 percent, respectively. The sports sector rose the most -- up 3.93 percent -- among all sector indices, while the metal index did the worst, with a drop of 0.90 percent.

Stocks of one of Turkey's major sports clubs, Galatasaray, enjoyed the biggest rise on Friday with a 20 percent hike, and shares of investment trust Global Yatirim, which has infrastructure, real estate, energy, and financial services interests in Turkey, saw a 6.77 percent decrease, the biggest drop of the day.

The most-traded stocks were private lender Garanti, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, mobile operator Turkcell, and lenders Akbank and Halkbank.