Turkey's Borsa Istanbul flat at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day with a 47.67-point hike to reach 90,952.16 points on Wednesday.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index was up 0.05 percent with a total trading volume of 3.7 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate decreased to 3.6630 liras as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) Wednesday, compared with 3.7140 liras at Tuesday's close.

One dollar was exchanged for 3.7310 liras last Friday, April 7, after seeing a historic hike -- around 3.94 liras -- in mid-January.

Borsa Istanbul's Gold Exchange index rose 1.03 percent while the price of gold per kilogram also climbed to 151,000 Turkish liras (around $40,110) as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT), up from 150,220 Turkish liras (some $40,486) at Tuesday's close.

On the third day of the week, the banking sector advanced by 0.61 percent while the holding index declined by 0.32 percent.

Among all sectors, the mining index was the best performer for the second day in a row, rising 4.02 percent, and the telecommunications sector saw the largest decline, falling 0.98 percent.

Stocks of Koza Gold Corporation (KOZAA), operating in the gold mining sector, enjoyed a 13.20 percent rise -- the highest of the day -- on Wednesday while shares of software producer Logo (LOGO) suffered the biggest drop of the day, declining .82 percent.

The five most-traded stocks were lenders Garanti, Halkbank and Yapi Kredi, followed by national flag-carrier Turkish Airlines plus Koza Gold.