Turkey's Benchmark Stock İndex Down At Close

Turkey's benchmark stock index closed Friday down 1.46 percent at 115,147.06 points with a 7-billion Turkish lira ($1.84-billion) trade volume.



Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index went down 1,708.96 points, down from Thursday's close at 116,856.02 points, while the banking and holding sector indices respectively lost 1.41 percent and 1.66 percent in value.



All sector indices were down, however the mining index went down the most, falling 3.91 percent.



Stocks of automotive manufacturer Karsan Otomotiv were the top gainers with a 5.05 percent hike. Shares of Turkish conglomerate Bera Holding suffered the worst performance of the day, sliding 6.43 percent.



The five most-traded stocks were Karsan Otomotiv, national flag-carrier Turkish Airlines, investment trust Global Yatirim Holding, lender Garanti and electronics appliances producer Vestel.



Meanwhile the U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate increased to 3.8020 as of 5.00 p.m. local time (1400GMT), up from 3.7820 at Thursday's close.



The euro/lira rate was also up at 4.6520 by market close, compared with the previous close of 4.6350.



The BIST Gold Exchange index increased 0.16 percent in value, while the price of gold per kilogram was up to 162,600 Turkish liras (around $42,602) as of 5.30 p.m. local time (1430GMT).



The price of Brent oil was $68.90 per barrel as of 6.25 p.m. local time (1525GMT), compared to $69.30 at the previous close. -