Muhammed Ali Gürtaş
26 January 2018•Update: 01 February 2018
By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA
Turkey's benchmark stock index continues to rally by rising 1.77 percent and set a new record on Friday by closing at its historic high with a 7 billion Turkish lira ($1.86 billion) trade volume.
On the last trading day of the week, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index rose 2,097.87 points to post its highest close ever at 120,701.92 points. During this week, the BIST 100 has risen 4.8 percent, up from last week's close at 115,147.06 points, and hit its all-time peak.
On Thursday afternoon, the index climbed over 120,000 points for the first time, while it has risen 2.7 percent, compared with 117,524.20 points on Jan. 2, 2018.
Last year, the BIST closed at 115,333.01 points on Dec. 29, 2017, and recorded a 48.3 percent annual rise compared with a close of 77,754.46 points on Jan. 2, 2017.
On Friday, the BIST banking index was the top performer among all sectors, up 4.13 percent. The BIST holding index also increased by 1.51 percent, while the real estate investment trust sector performed the worst with a 0.94 percent drop.
Stocks of investment trust Global Yatirim Holding showed the best performance on Friday with a 6.41 percent hike and shares of a real estate investment trust Emlak Konut Gayrimenkul fell the most, declining 2.18 percent.
The five most traded stocks of the BIST 100 were private lender Garanti, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, Global Yatirim Holding, Emlak Konut Gayrimenkul and leading defense company Aselsan.
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira rate stood at 3.7560 as of 5.00 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Friday, compared with Thursday's closing rate of 3.7190. On a weekly basis, the USD/TRY rate fell by 1.2 percent -- it was 3.8020 at the close on Friday, Jan. 19.
One dollar traded for 3.65 liras on average last year, while the average exchange rate was 3.03 in 2016.
On Friday, the EUR/TRY rate was more stable compared to other exchange rates, as one euro traded for 4.6690 liras by market close, versus 4.6630 at previous day's close. This week, the euro/lira rate showed a weekly increase of 0.3 percent.
Meanwhile, the BIST Gold Exchange index was down 0.40 percent, the price of gold per kilogram also fell to 163,000 Turkish liras ($43,416) as of 5.00 p.m. local time (1400GMT), versus 163,800 Turkish liras ($43,854) on Thursday.
The price of Brent crude oil was $70.32 per barrel as of 6.30 p.m. local time (1530GMT) Friday, compared with Thursday's close of $70.87.
