Turkish stocks down at year-end close

ANKARA

Turkey’s benchmark stock index ended the last business day of the year down 0.32% to close at 1,857.65 points on Friday.

Starting the day at 1,867.71 points, Borsa Istanbul’s BIST 100 index decreased six points from Thursday’s close.

The Index improved by almost 25.8% year-on-year, while it rises 2.7% in December.

The BIST 100 peaked at 1,885.23 points, while its daily low was 1,857.92 points during Friday’s trading.

As of the daily close, the total market value of the benchmark index was around 1.5 trillion Turkish liras ($115 billion), with a daily trading volume of 16.7 billion Turkish liras ($1.2 billion).

The highest trade volumes were recorded by national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, steel producer Eregli and private lender Garanti BBVA.

On Friday, 79 stocks on the BIST 100 rose, 17 declined, and the remaining were flat compared with the previous close.

Stocks of food company Kervan Gida saw the day’s highest increase, up 9.52%, while shares of polyester producer Sasa, exhibited the worst performance with a 2.94% drop.

In Borsa Istanbul’s Precious Metals and Diamond Markets, the price of one ounce of gold was around $1,824.65 by market close, versus $1,808.85 at the previous close.

The price of Brent oil was around $79.41 per barrel as of 6.15 p.m. local time (1515GMT) on Friday.