Turkey's Borsa Istanbul goes down at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day with a 287.08-point fall to 87,478.33 points on Tuesday.

The BIST 100 index decreased by 0.33 percent with a total trading volume of 4.1 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.13 billion).

On the second day of the week, the banking and holding indices were down by 0.34 and 1.09 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors indices, the telecommunication sector was the best performer -- up by 0.71 percent -- while the mining sector was the worst, for the second day in a row, falling 3.64 percent.

The most heavily-traded stocks were private lender Garanti, prominent sports club Besiktas, the country's national flag carrier, Turkish Airlines, plus other lenders Is Bankasi and Halkbank.

Shares of Turkey’s major defense systems producer ASELSAN were the top gainer of the day, rising 3.91 percent while stocks of Dogan Holding, which is heavily involved in media and energy sectors, suffered the biggest drop of the day, declining by 7.79 percent.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate hovered at around 3.60. One dollar was worth 3.6180 liras as of 5 p.m. (1400 GMT) Tuesday compared with 3.5950 at Monday's closing.

The dollar traded for 3.5880 liras on Feb. 24 after seeing a historic hike -- over 3.90 liras -- in mid-January.

The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index was down by 0.42 percent while the price of gold per kilogram increased to 145,750 Turkish liras (around $40,275) as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT), compared with 144,650 Turkish liras (around $40,234) at Monday's closing.

On Tuesday, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said Turkey’s exports started the year with a significant increase, rising by 18.1 percent in January compared with the same month last year.

TurkStat reported that the country's exports in the first month of this year stood at $11.3 billion while imports also rose to $15.6 billion -- almost 16 percent hike -- marking a $4.3 billion foreign trade deficit in January.

The Culture and Tourism Ministry said Tuesday the decline in the number of foreigners coming to Turkey had slowed down to a single percentage digit for the first time in the last 12 months.

The number of foreigners visiting Turkey in January was 1,055,474, which is a 9.81 percent decrease from a year earlier, the ministry said.

The most significant recovery in tourism numbers were from Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan after Turkey and Russia managed to revive bilateral ties following the November 2015 jet crisis.

The number of visitors from Russia surged to 81.51 percent in January from a year earlier while visitors from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan soared to 58.95 percent and 44.28 percent, respectively.