Turkey's Borsa Istanbul goes up at close

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark stock index, BIST 100, was up 680.56 points, or 0.58 percent, to close at 117,521.50 points on Friday.

The trade volume was 5.14 billion Turkish liras ($1.35 billion) while the banking and holding sector indices increased by 0.25 and 0.07 percent, respectively.

Among all sector indices, the transportation sector index was the best performer with 2.79 percent while the construction sector index fell the most -- 0.46 percent.

Stocks of energy firm Odas Elektrik were the top gainer of the day -- with a 4.12 percent rise -- while stocks of Turkish conglomerate Bera Holding fell 4.31 percent -- the biggest drop of the day.

The day's most-traded stocks were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, private lender Garanti, iron and steel producer Kardemir, petrochemicals producer Petkim and oil refinery Tupras.

BIST 100 index increased 524.96 points, or 0.45 percent, to 116,840.94 at Thursday's close with a total trading volume of 6.29 billion Turkish liras ($1.66 billion).

The US dollar/Turkish lira rate fell slightly to 3.7880 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) on Friday, from 3.7910 at previous day's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate dropped to 4.6590, compared with Thursday's close of 4.6760.

The BIST Gold Exchange index gained 0.76 percent in value, while a kilogram of gold traded at 162,100 Turkish liras ($42,792) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT) Friday, down from Thursday's closing price of 161,700 Turkish liras ($42,951).

As of 6.30 p.m. local time (1530GMT) Friday, the price of Brent oil rose by over 2.2 percent to $66.77 per barrel, versus $65.33 at the previous close.