Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down over 3 pct at close

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA

Turkey's benchmark stock index closed Monday down 3.10 percent at 104,282.78 points with a trading volume of around 6.1 billion Turkish liras ($1.51 billion).

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index ended the day with a 3,331.49-point drop from Friday's close of 107,614.27 points, while it opened the day at 107,940.24 points, up 0.30 percent.

The benchmark index hovered between 103,750.50 points and 108,170.76 points, while five stocks on the index were on the rise, 50 on the decline, and 45 flat compared to the previous close.

The total market value of listed shares on the BIST 100 was around 848 billion Turkish liras ($209.93 billion) at the close, while the banking and holding sector indices lost 3.60 percent and 3.62 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the leasing factoring sector index was the best performer, rising 0.99 percent, and the mining index saw the biggest drop, declining 5.51 percent.

Shares of prominent Turkish sports club Galatasaray (GSARAY) climbed the most, up 7.11 percent, while stocks of Aksa (AKSA), heavily involved in the energy sector, did the worst, falling 14.03 percent.

The BIST 100's most-traded listed companies were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, private lender Garanti, state lender Halkbank, gold company Koza Altin, and iron/steel producer Kardemir.

The USD/TRY exchange stood at 4.0440 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Monday, compared with 4.0480 at Friday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate also stood at 4.8870 by market close, versus 4.8890 at the previous close, while the British pound/lira exchange rate fell slightly to 5.6000 Turkish liras, compared with 5.6300 at last week's close.

The BIST Gold Exchange index fell 0.98 percent at the close. In Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets, one ounce of gold traded for $1,310.00 as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT) Monday, compared with $1,323.00 at Friday's close.

As of 6 p.m. local time (1500GMT), the price of Brent oil stood at $74.29 per barrel on the first transaction day's closing, compared with $74.80 at the end of the Friday.

The market will be closed on Tuesday for May 1 International Labor Day, which is a bank holiday in Turkey.

Turkey's exports rose 8.9 percent to reach $41.2 billion and imports jumped 22.7 percent to reach $61.9 billion in the first quarter of 2018, compared to the same period last year, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said on Monday.

In the first quarter of 2018, the country's total tourism income rose 31.3 percent year-on-year to $4.42 billion, according to TurkStat.

The Central Bank on Monday raised Turkey's year-end inflation forecast from 7.9 percent to 8.4 percent.