Turkish stocks up at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day with a 242.70-point rise to stand at 76,386.30 points on Thursday.

The BIST 100 index increased by 0.32 percent with a total trading volume of 3.7 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.02 billion).

On the fourth day of the week, the banking index declined by 0.16 percent while the holding sector index increased by 0.21 percent. Among all sector indices, the transportation sector advanced the most – 2.22 percent – while the wood paper printing index declined the most, 1.46 percent.

The most heavily traded stocks were lenders Garanti Bank, Halkbank, Akbank, Is Bankasi and the country's national flag carrier Turkish Airlines.

Turkish Airlines said on Thursday that the company would begin operating flights from Istanbul to Ukraine’s Kharkiv -- an industrial, educational and cultural destination -- by the end of March as the airline's 296th worldwide destination and the seventh in Ukraine.

Bayraktar Group's company Ege Endustri, producing spare parts for the automotive industry, enjoyed a 9.97 percent rise in its shares – the highest of the day – while shares of Ihlas Holding suffered the largest decline with a 6.67 percent fall.

The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index advanced 0.46 percent in value, with gold trading at 136,500 Turkish liras (some $37,654) per kilogram as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange continued to increase to stand at 3.6250 as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) Thursday, compared to 3.5840 in Wednesday's closing session.