Turkish stocks up at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day with a 410.72-point hike to reach 90,902.11 points Monday.

The BIST 100 index went up by 0.45 percent with a total trading volume of 2.9 billion Turkish liras (or approximately $798 million).

On the first day of the week, the banking and holding sectors advanced by 0.70 and 0.62 percent, respectively. The investment trusts index was the top performer -- increasing 2.52 percent -- while the sports index was the worst performer with a 2.07 percent drop.

The top five heavily traded stocks were Park Elektrik, private lender Garanti, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, state lender Halkbank, the country's biggest petrochemical producer Petkim.

Stocks of Park Elektrik (PRKME), involved in the energy and mining sectors, were the top gainer of the day, rising 20 percent. Shares of Besiktas (BJKAS), one of the most prominent Turkish sports club, saw the largest decline of the day, falling 3.45 percent.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate hovered below 3.65. A dollar was worth 3.6350 liras as of 5.00 p.m. (1400GMT) Monday, compared with 3.6170 at Friday's close.

The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index was flat with a 0.05 percent increase while the price of gold per kilogram was 143,984 Turkish liras (some $39,606) as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT) Monday.

Turkey’s government gross debt stock -- the outstanding debt of public sector institutions, the Central Bank, private companies and households -- stood at 783.1 billion Turkish liras (around $216 billion) at the end of February, the Treasury said Monday.

Most of the debt -- 478.6 billion liras ($132 billion) -- was in Turkish currency and 304.5 billion liras ($84 billion) was in foreign currency.

The central government debt stock stood at 800.2 billion Turkish liras ($220.3 billion at the time) at the end of January.