Turkish stocks end day with gains

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed Wednesday up 1.05 percent at 117,651.30 points with a 6.75 billion Turkish lira ($1.72 billion) trade volume.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index climbed 1,219.52 points from Tuesday's close at 116,431.78 points. During the midweek transactions, the BIST 100 hovered between 116,481.13 points and 117,795.10 points.

On a daily basis, 65 stocks in the BIST 100 were up, 28 were down, and seven were flat compared with the previous close while the total market value of the listed shares in BIST 100 amounted to 737.5 billion Turkish liras ($187.4 billion) as of daily close.

The banking and holding sector indices went up at close, rising 1.21 percent and 1.19 percent, respectively. Among all sectors, the BIST sports index performed the best -- up 3.42 percent -- and the BIST mining index recorded the biggest drop with a 1.89 percent fall.

Shares of Hurriyet Gazetecilik (HURGZ), one of Turkey's bestselling daily newspapers, showed the best performance on Wednesday, going up 19.42 percent. Stocks of energy and construction company Isiklar Enerji Yapi Holding (IEYHO) posted the worst performance with a 2.44 percent drop.

The BIST 100's most-traded listed companies were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, private lender Garanti, iron and steel producer Kardemir, major polyester producer Sasa, giant oil refinery Tupras.

The USD/TRY exchange was flat at 3.9290 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) on Wednesday. One dollar traded for 3.9300 liras at Tuesday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate stood at 4.8280 by market close, versus the previous close of 4.8210.

The BIST Gold Exchange index rose by 0.23 percent one kilogram gold traded for 166,300 Turkish liras ($42,243) as of 5.30 p.m. local time (1430GMT), up from 165,800 Turkish liras ($42,196) at Tuesday's close.

As of 6.37 p.m. local time (1537GMT), the price of Brent oil stood at $69.21 per barrel -- hovering between $67.47 per barrel and $69.33 per barrel during Wednesday.