Turkish stocks up at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed Tuesday up 118.88 points to stand at 87,476.73.

The BIST 100 rose 0.14 percent with total trading volume at 4.7 billion Turkish liras ($1.26 billion).

The lira stood at 3.7270 to the U.S. dollar at 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT), compared with 3.6880 at Monday’s closing.

According to a statement from the Borsa stock exchange in Istanbul, foreigners bought shares worth of $816 million on the market in January, the strongest performance of the last 10 months.

Shares in Garanti Bank were favored by foreign investors who bought stock worth $146.5 million. Halkbank shares were second, with net purchases of $88.6 million, followed by Turkish Airlines, Is Bank and Vakif Bank.

On Tuesday, the banking and holding sector indexes rose 0.62 and 0.91 percent respectively. The mining sector performed best -- a 9.45 percent rise -- while the basic metal index saw the largest drop -- 2.59 percent.

The most heavily traded stocks were in private lender Garanti, Turkish Airlines, Halkbank, Yapi Kredi and Akbank.

Shares of gold mining firm Koza Altin were the day’s best performer with a 13.73 percent rise. Domestic appliances manufacturer Arcelik suffered biggest drop of the day, falling 6.64 percent.

The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index saw no percentage change. Gold was trading at 147,150 liras ($39,467) per kilogram at 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT).

Turkey’s new sovereign wealth fund will be strictly controlled by multiple institutions, including independent auditors, Finance Minister Naci Agbal said Tuesday. He said the fund’s international reputation depended on a solid audit mechanism.