Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index advanced 573.76 points to close at 96,161.50 points on Tuesday.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index rose 0.60 percent with a total trading volume of 5.3 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.5 billion).

On the second trading day of the week, the banking and holding sector indices climbed 0.89 percent and 0.88 percent, respectively.

Among all indices, the information technology sector was the best performer, up 1.07 percent, while the tourism index was the worst, down 4.50 percent.

Stocks of Çemtaş Çelik Makina (CEMTS), operating in the steel industry, performed the best on Tuesday -- up by 4.46 percent -- while shares of pipe and tube producer Erbosan (ERBOS) suffered the largest decline of the day, falling 3.55 percent.

The five most-traded stocks were private lender Garanti, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, Turkish defense giant Aselsan, state lender Halkbank, and mobile operator Turkcell.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate slipped to 3.5520 Turkish liras as of 6 p.m. (1500GMT) on Tuesday, compared with 3.554 Turkish liras at Monday's close.

Borsa Istanbul's Gold Exchange index fell by 0.48 percent while the price of gold per kilogram increased to 141,700 Turkish liras (around $39,906) as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT).