Turkish stocks go down at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed the day down 1.19 percent to stand at 115,457.30 points on Tuesday, with a 7.5 billion Turkish lira ($1.98 billion) trade volume.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index fell 1,395.38 points, down from Monday's close at 116,852.68 points, while the banking and holding sectors indices went down by 1.03 percent and 2.19 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the chemical petrol plastic sector index was the top performer with a 0.61 percent hike and the BIST food beverage index fell the most, going down by 2.75 percent.

Stocks of Tesco Kipa (KIPA) were the top gainers for the second consecutive day, increasing by 19.94 percent. A Turkish conglomerate Net Holding (NTHOL), heavily involved in hotel management, was the worst performer, as its shares fell by 4.96 percent.

The BIST 100's top five most-traded stocks were the national flag-carrier Turkish Airlines, lenders Garanti and Is Bankasi, followed by iron/steel producer Kardemir plus another private lender Akbank.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange climbed to 3.7830 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Tuesday, compared to Monday's close at 3.7600.

The EUR/TRY exchange rate was flat at 4.6730 on Tuesday, versus 4.6710 at Monday's market close.

The BIST Gold Exchange index advanced 0.37 percent, while the price of gold per kilogram also rose to 163,000 Turkish liras ($43,085) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT), versus 161,600 Turkish liras ($42,927) on Friday.

As of 6.15 p.m. local time (1515GMT) Tuesday, the price of Brent oil stood at $67.27 per barrel, compared with the previous close of $67.88.