Turkish shares close higher, lira remains steady

ANKARA (AA) - Turkish shares closed slightly higher Friday, helped by gains in technology and industry stocks.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST-100, the country’s benchmark index, closed up at 0.22 percent (174.66 points) higher at 78,145,59.

Turkish markets primarily focused on the imminent release of Fitch’s sovereign credit rating review for the country on Friday.

For Fitch's anticipated rating announcement on Friday night, it is expected to maintain its credit rating and outlook on Turkey.

Fitch’s in February confirmed Turkey's long-term foreign and local currency issuer ratings as “BBB-” and “BBB” respectively, with a stable outlook.

One of the biggest winner was Alcatel Lucent Teletas Telekomunikasyon A.S. (ALCTL), which saw an increase of 6.36 percent or 0.52 points to trade at 6.36 after the company reported 16.4 million Turkish liras profit ($5.4 million) for the first half of the year.

On the last trading day of the week, the technology index rose about 0.50 percent and the industry index was also up 10.38 percent on Friday when the total trading volume reached 2.3 billion Turkish liras ($1.1 billion).

Borsa Istanbul's most actively-traded stocks were Garanti Bank, Turkish Airlines, state lender Halkbank and private lender Akbank.

The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index lost 0.79 percent in value Friday compared with Thursday's close, with gold trading at 126,530 Turkish liras per kilogram.

The lira ended under 2.93 against the U.S. dollar compared with Thursday's close of 2.9320.