Turkish shares rise to over 90,000 points at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed Thursday with an 822.78-point hike to reach 90,268.32 points.

The BIST 100 index was up by 0.92 percent with a total trading volume of 3.9 billion Turkish liras (or approximately $1.07 billion).

On the fourth day of the week, the banking and holding sectors rose by 0.87 and 0.83 percent respectively.

Among all sector indices, the mining sector was the top performer -- up 7.40 percent -- while the leasing factoring index was the worst-performing sector for the second trading day in a row, falling 5.64 percent.

The top five heavily-traded stocks were private lender Garanti, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, another private lender Akbank followed by state lender Halkbank plus the country's biggest petrochemical producer Petkim.

Energy and mining company Ipek Dogal Enerji's shares (IPEKE) saw the largest increase with a 10.81 percent rise while the stocks of Metro Holding (METRO) -- heavily involved in tourism, food processing, real estate, mining, and energy sectors -- suffered the biggest drop of the day, going down 8.63 percent.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate decreased steeply to below 3.65. A dollar was worth 3.6460 liras as of 5.00 p.m. (1400 GMT) Thursday, compared with 3.7250 at Wednesday's close.

The dollar traded for 3.7320 liras last Friday, March 10, after seeing a historic hike -- over 3.90 liras -- in mid-January.

The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index advanced 2.13 percent while the price of gold per kilogram increased to 144,300 Turkish liras (some $39,700) as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT), compared with 143,600 Turkish liras (some $38,589) at Wednesday's close.

Turkey’s Central Bank on Tuesday hiked its late liquidity window lending rate by 0.75 percentage points, leaving all other key rates on hold, according to a statement from the bank on Thursday.

The overnight lending rate, the rate banks use to borrow from the Central Bank overnight, was kept at 9.25 percent. The overnight borrowing rate, under which banks lend or deposit money to the Central Bank, also remained unchanged at 7.25 percent.

The one-week repo rate, known as the policy rate, was also kept at 8 percent, according to the statement.

However, for interest rates used in the Central Bank’s late liquidity window -- between 4 p.m. (1300GMT) and 5 p.m. (1400GMT) -- the borrowing rate was kept at zero percent while the lending rate was raised from 11 percent to 11.75 percent.

The bank said recent data indicate a gradual recovery in economic activity thanks to recovering EU demand for Turkish exports while weak domestic demand limits improvement.

“With the supportive measures and incentives provided recently, the recovery in economic activity is expected to continue at a moderate pace. The [Monetary Policy] Committee assesses that the implementation of the structural reforms would contribute to the potential growth significantly,” said the statement.