Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down at close

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA

Turkey's benchmark stock index closed Tuesday down 0.77 percent at 93,189.27 points with a trading volume of around 5.9 billion Turkish liras ($880.8 million).

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index ended the day with a 726.28-point drop from Monday's close of 93,915.55 points, while it opened the day at 94,254.45 points, up 0.36 percent.

The benchmark index hovered between 92,915.43 points and 94,589.11 points, while 29 stocks were on the rise, 62 on the decline, and nine flat compared to the previous close.

The total market value of listed shares on the BIST 100 was 613.7 billion liras ($92.7 billion) at close, while the banking and holding sectors indices lost 0.28 percent and 0.05 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the construction sector index was the best, up 1.26 percent, and the leasing factoring sector index saw the biggest drop, down 4.55 percent.

Stocks of casting producer Cemas Dokum climbed the most, up 13.08 percent, while shares of leasing factoring firm Is Finansal Kiralama suffered the worst, falling 6.30 percent.

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

The USD/TRY exchange rate rose to 6.6820 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Tuesday, compared with 6.6300 at Monday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate climbed slightly to 7.7170 by market close, versus 7.7110 at the previous close, while the British pound/lira exchange rate reached 8.5790 Turkish liras, compared with 8.5550 at the previous close.

In Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets, one ounce of gold traded for $1,193.00 as of 5.30 p.m. local time (1430GMT) Tuesday, compared with $1,201.00 at previous close.

As of 6 p.m. local time (1500GMT), the price of Brent oil stood at $78.15 per barrel on the second transaction day's closing, compared with $78.31 at the end of Monday.