Turkish stocks hit new record at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the week with a 995.31-point hike to stand over 88,000 level Friday, marking a continuing rise for the seventh day in a row to reach highest level since May, 2015.

The BIST 100 index advanced by 1.14 percent to reach 88,389.50 while the total trading volume was 4.5 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.2 billion).

The benchmark index closed 5.44 percent higher compared to the last week closing which was 83,827.39 points Friday, Jan. 27. The stock exchange market has yielded a 13.12 percent since the beginning of 2017.

Lira continued to gain ground against dollar, and dollar/lira exchange rate dropped to under 3.70 level, lowest for the last four week, during the trading hours Friday.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate fell to stand at 3.6970 as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) Friday, compared with 3.7300 at Thursday's closing session, which was 3.8730 last Friday.

On the last trading day of the week, the banking and holding sector indices increased by 2.24 and 1.12 percent, respectively. Among all sectors, the tourism one was the best performer --2.97 percent rise-- while the electricity index fell the most, declining by 0.85 percent.

The most heavily-traded stocks were private lender Garanti, the country's national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, followed by other lenders Akbank, Yapi Kredi and Is Bankasi.

Shares of Vestel, one of Turkey's leading electronics and domestic appliances manufacturer, were the top performer with a 6.76-percent rise Friday amid the country's finance minister's messages about taxes on particular consumer goods.

On Friday, Finance Minister Naci Agbal said a 6.7 percent special consumption tax on white goods had been reduced to zero and an 18 percent VAT on furniture was cut to eight percent for next three months, in a bid to support domestic demand.

Ulker, Turkish giant producer in the food industry, suffered biggest drop of the day, its shares decreased by 2.55 percent.

The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index decreased by 0.72 percent while gold was trading at 143,000 Turkish liras (around $38,653) per kilogram as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT).

Turkey's annual inflation rate was 9.22 percent in January, according to a Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) report released Friday.

Consumer prices in Turkey rose 9.22 percent year-on-year in January from 8.53 percent in December, TurkStat said.

Meanwhile, monthly inflation also increased by 2.46 percent in January over the previous month, higher than experts' predictions.