Turkey's benchmark stock index ends week with gain

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA

Turkey's benchmark stock index ended the week by going up 0.25 percent to close at 116,510.97 points on Friday with a 5.52 billion Turkish lira ($1.47 billion) trade volume.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index rose 285.37 points, up from Thursday's close at 116,225.60 points. Among all sectors, the BIST sports index performed the best with a 1.25 percent climb while the mining sector index went down the most, falling by 1.21 percent.

On the last trading day of the week, the BIST banking index was up 0.44 percent -- seven shares were up, four stocks fell, two shares was flat among listed lenders. The BIST holding index also climbed 0.60 percent while 19 stocks were up, eight shares were down, and eight stocks were flat.

Stocks of Isiklar Enerji Yapi Holding (IEYHO) had the best performance of the day with a 7.89 percent hike and shares of Bera Holding (BERA) performed the worst, falling 3.38 percent.

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

On a weekly basis, the benchmark stock index has risen 2.57 percent with a 5.54 billion Turkish lira ($1.46 billion) on average. On Jan. 29, the BIST 100 hit its all-time high -- reaching 121,531.50 points.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate continued its downward trend, standing at 3.7510 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Friday. One dollar traded for 3.7720 liras on Thursday, while the exchange rate fell 1.75 percent compared with last Friday's close at 3.8180.

The EUR/TRY exchange rate also went down steeply to 4.6660 by markets' close, versus 4.7090 at the previous close. On a weekly basis, euro/lira rate was down 0.36 percent.

The BIST Gold Exchange index was up 0.46 percent, while the price of gold per kilogram fell to 163,700 Turkish liras ($43,645) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT), down from 164,250 Turkish liras ($43,519) on Thursday.

As of 6.45 p.m. local time (1545GMT) Friday, the price of Brent oil stood at $64.45 per barrel -- hovering between $64.19 and $64,94 during the day.