Turkish stocks go up at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the week with a 889.90-point hike on Friday to stand at 93,928.39 points.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index rose by 0.96 percent with a total trading volume of 5 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.41 billion), which is a decrease of 0.76 percent compared with last Friday's close of 94,655.31 points.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was flat at 3.5520 liras as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) on Friday, compared with 3.5540 liras at Thursday's close.

Borsa Istanbul's gold exchange index increased by 0.35 percent while the price of gold per kilogram also increased to 141,300 Turkish liras (some $39,778) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT), compared with 141,000 Turkish liras (around $39,437) at Thursday’s close.

The banking and holding indices advanced by 0.69 and 1.12 percent, respectively. The chemical petrol plastic sector increased the most -- up by 3.69 percent -- among all sector indices while the non-metal mineral product index was the worst, with a decrease of 0.56 percent.

Stocks of investment trust Global Yatirim (GLYHO), which has infrastructure, real estate, energy and financial services interests in Turkey, enjoyed the highest increase on Friday with a 7.59 hike and shares of Deva Holding, a pharmaceutical company, saw a 4.19 percent decrease, the biggest drop of the day.

The top traded stocks were mobile operator Turkcell, private lender Garanti, the country's biggest petrochemical company Petkim, followed by Turkey's leading defense industry company Aselsan and national flag carrier Turkish Airlines.