Turkish stocks down 1.63% at Monday’s close

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed Monday at 120,149.70 points, down 1.63% from the previous close.

Starting the day at 1,430.05 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index lost 1,992.05 points from Friday’s close of 122,141.75 points.

During Friday’s trading, the BIST 100 hovered between 120,626.78 points and 121,673.64 points, with 46 stocks on the index rising, 50 falling and the remaining flat compared to the previous close.

The benchmark index posted a daily trading volume of 11.4 billion Turkish liras (nearly $1.9 billion).

Stocks of information technologies company Netas (NETAS) gained the most, up 9.25%, while shares of conglomerate GSD Holding did the worst, falling 4.97%.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate rose to 5.9510 as of 17.00 a.m. local time (1400GMT) on Monday, versus 5.9430 at Friday’s close.

The euro/Turkish lira exchange rate stood at 6.5630, versus 6.5600, while one British pound traded for 7.7830 Turkish liras. It was 7.7990 at Friday's close.

The price of Brent oil was $58.67 per barrel as of 6.25 p.m. local time (1525GMT) on Monday.