UPDATE - Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down at close

UPDATE WITH MORE DAILY AND HALF-YEAR FIGURES

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed Friday down 0.37 percent at 98,733.89 points with a trading volume of around 7.8 billion Turkish liras ($1.7 billion).

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index ended the day with a 363.11-point drop from Thursday's close of 99,097.00 points, while it opened the day at 99,301.48 points, up 0.21 percent.

The benchmark index hovered between 98,109.88 points and 99,806.42 points, while 23 stocks on the index were on the rise, 71 on the decline, and six flat compared to the previous close.

The total market value of listed shares on the BIST 100 was 652.2 billion liras ($140.5 billion) at close, while the banking and holding sector indices lost 0.30 percent and 0.55 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the telecommunication sector index saw an increase, up 1.28 percent, and the leasing factoring sector index saw the biggest drop, losing 4.82 percent.

Stocks of casting producer Cemas Dokum climbed the most, up 6.22 percent, while shares of finance company Is Finansal Kiralama suffered the worst, falling 6.27 percent.

The BIST 100's most-traded listed companies were defense company Aselsan, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, private lender Garanti, iron/steel producer Kardemir, and state lender Halkbank.

The USD/TRY exchange rate fell to 4.5820 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Friday, compared with 4.6110 at Thursday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate also decreased slightly to 5.3910 by market close, versus 5.4000 at the previous close, while the British pound/lira exchange rate dropped to 6.0980 Turkish liras, compared with 6.1120 at Thursday's close.

In Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets, one ounce of gold traded for $1,254.50 as of 5.30 p.m. local time (1430GMT) Friday, compared with $1,256.50 at Thursday's close.

As of 6 p.m. local time (1500GMT), the price of Brent oil dropped to $76.83 per barrel on the last transaction day's closing, compared with $77.77 at the end of Thursday.

The Turkish Treasury's cash revenues were 363.6 billion liras ($88.89 billion) and expenditures were 405.5 billion liras ($99.14 billion), while its cash balance saw a deficit of 38.3 billion Turkish liras (around $9.36 billion) between January and June of 2018, the Treasury Undersecretariat announced on Friday.