Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day 824.25 points down on Thursday to stand at 93,038.49 points.

Borsa Istanbul’s BIST 100 index dropped by 0.88 percent while the total trading volume was 5.2 billion Turkish liras ($1.46 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate climbed to 3.5540 liras as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Thursday, compared with 3.5320 liras at Wednesday's close.

Borsa Istanbul's gold exchange index fell 2.09 percent while the price of gold per kilogram decreased to 141,000 Turkish liras (some $39,437) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT), compared with 143,000 liras (around $40,437) at Wednesday’s close.

The banking and holding indices were down by 0.90 and 0.57 percent, respectively. The construction index was the best performer -- up 1.16 percent -- among all sector indices while the telecommunication sector was the worst, with a decrease of 6.03 percent.

Shares of poultry and feed producer Banvit (BANVT) enjoyed the highest rise on Thursday with a 3.51 percent increase while the stocks of telecommunication company Turkcell (TCELL) suffered the largest decline, falling 7.33 percent.

The top traded stocks were prominent mobile operator Turkcell, private lender Garanti, national flag-carrier Turkish Airlines, followed by another private lender Akbank plus the country's leading defense industry company Aselsan.