By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA (AA) – Turkey’s benchmark index rose by 650.10 points to close at 77,807.89 points on Tuesday.
On the second day of the week, the BIST 100 index rose 0.84 percent, while the banking and holding sector indices climbed 0.99 and 1.16 percent, respectively. The total trading volume of the country’s benchmark index was around 2.7 billion Turkish liras ($766 million).
Among sector indices, the information technologies sector index rose the most – 1.94 percent – while the investment trusts index fell the most, 1.30 percent.
The most heavily traded stocks were lenders Garanti Bank, Halkbank, Akbank, Yapi Kredi, and the national flag carrier Turkish Airlines.
Shares of Park Elektrik, which operates in the energy sector, were the top percent gainer with a rise of 4.37 percent in value, while Aksa Enerji from the same sector saw the biggest drop with a fall of 1.44 percent.
The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index declined 0.83 percent in value, with gold trading at 128,600 Turkish liras ($36,484) per kilogram.
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate rose to 3.5250 as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) Tuesday, compared to 3.5040 in Monday’s closing session.
Turkey’s Central Bank kept all rates on hold Tuesday at its last monetary policy meeting of 2016. The bank left its policy rate known as the one-week repo rate at 8 percent, its overnight lending rate at 8.5 percent, and its overnight borrowing rate at 7.25 percent, according to a press release posted on its website.
A major $1.3-billion tunnel linking Istanbul’s European and Asian sides opened Tuesday with a ceremony attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.
