18 April 2018•Update: 19 April 2018
By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA
Turkey's benchmark stock index surged by 3.08 percent to close at 112,099.01 points on Wednesday with around 10.5 billion Turkish lira ($2.6 billion) trade volume.
Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index ended the day with a 3,354.22-point hike from Tuesday's close of 108,744.79 points, while it opened the midweek trading day at 108,618.32 points with a 0.12 percent down.
The BIST 100's rally came after Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a plan to hold early presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24, instead of November 2019.
During trading hours, the benchmark index hovered between 107,439.10 points and 112,099.01 points, while 96 stocks on the index were on the rise, three fell and one share was flat compared with the previous close. The total market value of listed shares on the BIST 100 was 698.2 billion Turkish liras ($170.4 billion) at midweek close.
The banking and holding sector indices increased by 4.64 and 2.25 percent, respectively. Among all sectors, the BIST mining index recorded the best performance with a 6.43 percent rise while the leasing factoring sector index fell by 0.46 as the only sector ended day with down.
Shares of prominent polyester producer Sasa (SASA) showed the top daily performance with a 9.74 percent climb and stocks of TAV Airports Holding (TAVHL), Turkey's leading airport operator, fell the most, dropping 0.64 percent.
The BIST 100's most-traded listed companies were national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, lenders Garanti and Halkbank, iron/steel producer Kardemir and Sasa Polyester.
The USD/TRY exchange fell to 4.0500 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Wednesday, compared with 4.0970 at Tuesday's close.
The euro/lira exchange rate also was down to 5.0190 by market close -- declining from 5.0610 at the previous close -- and one British pound traded for 5.7830 Turkish liras while the GBP/TRY rate was 5.8780 at the previous close.
The BIST Gold Exchange index recorded a 0.92 percent hike at the daily close. In the Precious Metals and Diamond Markets of Borsa Istanbul, one ounce of gold traded for $1,352.30 as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT) Wednesday, versus $1,340.00 at Tuesday's close.
As of 6 p.m. local time (1500GMT), the price of Brent oil stood at $72.98 per barrel -- hovering between $71.67 and $73.39 during Wednesday -- climbing from around $66 at the beginning of this year.
