Turkish stocks close week down

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA

Turkey's benchmark stock index closed Friday down with a 0.78 percent fall to stand at 118,119.40 points, with a 5.3 billion Turkish lira ($1.4 billion) trade volume.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index fell 924.98 points, down from Thursday's close at 119,044.38 points.

During this week, the index hit its all-time peak at 121,531.50 points on Monday and post its highest close ever at 120,845.29 points.

Last month, the BIST 100 recorded a 1.7 percent monthly increase, while the index showed a 48.3 percent annual rise last year.

On the last trading day of the week, the banking and holding sector indices were down 0.62 and 0.35 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the BIST tourism index climbed the most with a 1.66 percent hike and the BIST mining index was the worst performer, falling 2.61 percent.

Stocks of the diesel engine and tractor manufacturer Tumosan Motor was the top gainer of the day -- up 6.26 percent -- and shares of an electronic appliances retail seller Teknosa fell the most, declining 3.16 percent.

The five most traded stocks of the BIST 100 were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, private lender Garanti, Tumosan Motor, followed by another private lender Akbank and real estate investment trust Emlak Konut Gayrimenkul.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira rate stood at 3.7650 as of 5.00 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Friday, compared with Thursday's closing rate of 3.7500. On a weekly basis, the USD/TRY rate rose by 0.23 percent -- it was 3.7560 at the close on Friday, Jan. 26.

Last month, the average dollar/lira rate was 3.78. 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 also increased slightly to stand at 4.6840 by market close, versus 4.6720 at previous day's close. This week, the euro/lira rate rose by 0.32 percent.

Meanwhile, the BIST Gold Exchange index went up 0.48 percent, the price of gold per kilogram also rose to 162,100 Turkish liras ($43,089) as of 5.00 p.m. local time (1400GMT), versus 162,000 Turkish liras ($41,334) on Thursday.

The price of Brent crude oil was $68.16 per barrel as of 6.40 p.m. local time (1540GMT) Friday, compared with Thursday's close of $69.47.