Turkish shares down at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day with a 242.75-point decrease to 88,587.66 Monday.

The BIST 100 index declined by 0.27 percent with total trading volume of 4.2 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.16 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate continued to decrease below 3.63. One dollar was worth 3.6240 as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) Monday.

The dollar was traded for 3.6710 liras at Friday's closing, after saw a historic hike -- 3.90 liras -- in mid-January.

On the first trading day of the week, the banking index declined 0.90 percent and the holding sector index rose 0.24 percent. Among all sectors, the sports index was the best performer -- up 5.25 percent -- while the basic metal index dropped the most, 1.33 percent.

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

Turkey expects to welcome over 226 million air passengers annually by 2019, up 30 percent over last year, according to official revised figures released Monday.

The 174 million passengers Turkey welcomed in 2016, including direct transit passengers, is expected to rise 8.4 percent to reach 188.6 million at the end of the year, according to the General Directorate of State Airports Authority (DHMI).

Shares of Besiktas (BJKAS), one of the country's major sports club and last year's football champion, were the best performer of the day, advancing 11.57 percent.

Aksa (AKSA), heavily involved in energy sector, saw the largest decline of the day, with its shares falling 7.92 percent.

The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index lost 0.19 percent while the price of gold for per kilogram also declined to 144,121 Turkish liras (around $39,735) as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT), compared with 146,537 Turkish liras (around $39,943) at Friday's closing.

Turkey’s foreign assets rose 2.1 percent year-on-year in December to reach $214.8 billion, the Central Bank said Monday.

At the same time, overseas liabilities fell by 3 percent to $570.8 billion, the bank added, putting Turkey’s December Net International Investment Position (NIIP) at -$356.1 billion, a 5.8 percent improvement on the same period last year.

The Treasury said Monday that Turkey’s government gross debt stock -- the outstanding debt of public sector institutions, the Central Bank, private companies and households -- stood at 800.2 billion Turkish liras ($220.3 billion) at the end of January.

Most of the debt -- 473.5 billion liras ($130.3 billion) -- was in Turkish currency and 326.7 billion liras ($89.9 billion) was in foreign currency.

The central government debt stock stood at 759.6 billion Turkish liras ($198.85 billion) at the end of December.

On Monday, Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said consumer confidence index in Turkey was down in February from the previous month.

The index slipped by 1.8 percent to hit 65.7 in February from 66.9 points last month, said TurkStat report.

Turkey's total natural gas imports increased by 4.37 percent in December 2016 compared to December 2015, according to Turkey's energy watchdog data on Monday.

Turkey's Guris Holding launched a 200-megawatt wind power plan in the Dinar district of Afyonkarahisar province in Central Anatolia which has become the second biggest wind plant in the country, the company announced on its website late Friday.

The country's current installed wind power capacity is 5.775 gigawatts as of Jan. 31, 2017, according to figures of Turkey's Electricity Transmission Company (TEIAS).