Can Erözden
February 19, 2018•Update: February 19, 2018
By Can Erozden
ANKARA
Turkey's benchmark stock index dropped by 0.54 percent to close at 115,881.96 points on Monday, with a total trading volume of 6.2 billion Turkish liras ($1.64 billion).
Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index lost 629.01 points, while the banking and holding sectors indices fell 1.76 percent and 0.25 percent, respectively.
Among all sector indices the best performer was the mining sector index, gaining 2.46 percent.
Stocks of the Istanbul-based football club Fenerbahce had the best performance of the day with a 9.46 percent hike. Shares of Bera Holding performed the worst, falling 5.24 percent.
The BIST 100's top five most traded stocks were defense company Aselsan, national flag-carrier Turkish Airlines, gold miner Koza Altin, private lender Garanti and iron/steel producer Kardemir.
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate slightly went up to 3.7580 as of 5.00 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Monday. One dollar traded for 3.7510 liras on Friday.
However the EUR/TRY exchange rate went down to 4.6510 by markets' close, versus 4.6660 at the previous close.
The BIST Gold Exchange index was also down 0.51 percent, while the price of gold per kilogram fell to 162,800 Turkish liras ($43,359) as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT), down from 163,700 Turkish liras ($43,645) on Friday.
As of 6.20 p.m. local time (1520GMT) Monday, the price of Brent oil increased to $65.21 per barrel, versus $64.45 at the previous close.
