Turkish stocks rise to new record

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark index closed the day with a 870.82-point hike to reach its historic high of 96,194.20 points on Wednesday.

The BIST 100 index advanced 0.91 percent with a total trading volume of 6.3 billion Turkish liras ($1.75 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate slightly decreased to 3.5900 liras as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) Wednesday, compared with 3.5940 liras at Tuesday's close.

Borsa Istanbul's Gold Exchange index rose by 0.42 percent while the price of gold per kilogram was 140,000 Turkish liras ($39,071) as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT), down from 141,750 Turkish liras ($38,987) at Tuesday's close.

On the third trading day of the week, the banking and holding indexes surged 0.74 and 0.47 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the trade sector index was the best performer with an increase of 4.05 percent while the wood, paper and printing sector index declined the most, by 1.01 percent.

Shares of leading polyester producer SASA Polyester Sanayi (SASA) advanced the most on Tuesday -- up 11.14 percent -- while stocks of investment trust Global Yatirim (GLYHO), which has infrastructure, real estate, energy and financial services interests in Turkey saw the largest drop, falling 3.27 percent.

The top traded stocks were state lender Halkbank, private lender Garanti, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, followed by Turkey's leading defense industry company Aselsan and private lender Akbank.