Turkish stocks up over 2 pct at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA

Turkey's benchmark stock index went up 2.42 percent to close at 92,387.41 points on Thursday.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index started the day at 90,253.58 points and ended the day up 2,186.7 points from Wednesday's close.

During the course of Thursday's trading, the BIST 100 bottomed out at 89,950.14 points and peaked at 92,440.92 points. Compared to the previous close, 73 stocks on the index rose, 22 fell, and five were flat.

With a market value of nearly 602 billion liras ($109.5 billion), the most valuable shares of the BIST 100 were Turkish conglomerate Koc Holding ($7.07 billion), energy giant Tupras ($5.90 billion), and iron and steel producer Eregli Demir Celik ($5.73 billion).

Thursday's total trading volume of the benchmark index was 6.78 billion liras ($1.22 billion), as lender Garanti, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, defense company Aselsan, and lenders Akbank and Halkbank saw the highest trade volumes.

Stocks of electrical company Gersan (GEREL) enjoyed the highest increase, up 19.85 percent, while shares of automotive company Dogus Otomotiv (DOAS) saw the biggest drop, losing 6 percent.

Among all sectors, the BIST mining index posted the best performance with a rise of 7.81 percent, while the largest decline was seen by the BIST basic metal index, falling 2.13 percent.

At the daily close, the U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was 5.5560, versus 5.5450 at the previous close.

The euro/lira rate rose to 6.3500, compared with 6.2780 at Wednesday's close.

The GBP/TRY rate stood at 7,1900 by market close, versus 7.0870 liras at the previous close.

In Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets, one ounce of gold was sold for $1,230.20 at Thursday's close, climbing from $1,217.90.

Hovering between $74.08 and $74.97 during the day, the price of Brent oil was around $74.23 per barrel as of 6.15 p.m. local time (1515GMT) Thursday.

At the beginning of this year, one barrel of Brent oil sold for $66.