By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA (AA) – Turkey’s benchmark index advanced by 797.75 points to close at 77,678.59 points on Thursday.
On the fourth day of the week, the BIST 100 index increased by 1.04 percent, while the banking and holding sector indices advanced by 1.60 and 0.93 percent, respectively. The total trading volume of the country’s benchmark index was around 3.8 billion Turkish liras (over $1 billion).
Among sector indices, the transportation sector index increased the most — by 2.97 percent — while the mining sector declined the most, by 1.22 percent.
The most heavily-traded stocks were lenders Garanti Bank, Halkbank, Akbank, Vakifbank, and the national flag carrier, Turkish Airlines.
Shares of Kardemir Karabuk, which is a major producer in the iron-steel industry, were the top percent gainer with an increase of 5.61 percent in value, while Galatasaray, a prominent football club of the country, saw the biggest drop with a fall of 5.73 percent.
The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index declined by 2.53 percent in value, with gold trading at 128,750 Turkish liras ($36,643) per kilogram.
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate increased to 3.5140 at 5 p.m. (1400GMT) on Thursday, compared to 3.4850 in Wednesday’s closing session.
The Turkish government ran a budget surplus of 10 billion Turkish liras ($3.03 billion) in November, and a budget deficit of 2.1 billion Turkish liras ($705 million) in January-November, the country’s finance minister said Thursday.
Meanwhile, unemployment inched up by one percent to reach 11.3 percent in September compared with the same month last year, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced Thursday.
