Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up nearly 1-pct at close

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL

Turkey's benchmark stock index rose by 0.94 percent to close at 93,699.49 points on Friday.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index started the day at 93,521.18 points and lost 872.2 points from Thursday's close of 92,827.29 points.

During the fourth transaction day of the week, the BIST 100 peaked at 93,717.50 points, while its daily low was 93,149.26 points.

With a trade volume of 5.26 billion Turkish lira ($985.2 million), the BIST 100's total market value was around 611.12 billion liras ($114 billion) as of daily close.

National flag carrier Turkish Airlines, state lender Halkbank, and private lender Garanti posted the highest trade volumes on Friday.

Compared to Thursday's close, 68 stocks on the BIST 100 rose, 25 declined, and seven were flat.

The shares of energy and mining company Park Elektrik showed the best performance on Friday -- up 6.35 percent -- while stocks of casting producer Cemas Dokum suffered the most, dropping 7.03 percent.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate reached 5.2940 at close, down from Thursday's close of 5.3690.

The euro/lira rate also decreased at close; 6.0280 versus 6.1130 at the previous close.

One British pound traded for 6.7640 Turkish liras, while the GBP/TRY rate was 6.8620 at close on Thursday.

In Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets, the price of one ounce of gold was around $1,241.80 by market close, up from $1,236.75 a day ago.

The price of Brent crude oil was $62.99 per barrel as of 6 p.m. (1500GMT) Friday, versus $60.22 at previous close.

It was hovering at level of $59-60 during the day before Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) decision to decrease daily oil production.