Turkish stocks go up at close

Turkey's benchmark index closed the day with a 302.81-point increase to stand at 78,138.66 points on Friday.

The BIST 100 index advanced by 0.39 percent, and the total trading volume of the benchmark index was around 1.8 billion Turkish liras (approximately $511 million).

On the last trading day of the year, the banking and holding sector indices increased by 0.15 and 0.64 percent, respectively. Among all sector indices, the factoring leasing index rose the most -- 2.54 percent -- while the mining index declined the most, by 0.80 percent.

The most heavily-traded stocks were private lender Garanti Bank, airline companies Turkish Airlines and Pegasus, state lender Halkbank, and the country's major mobile operator Turkcell.

Pegasus, Turkey's prominent private airline company, enjoyed a 6.23 percent rise in its shares -- the highest of the day, while shares of Dogan Holding, heavily involved in the media sector, suffered from the biggest drop with a 2.56 percent fall.

Turkish Technic, the maintenance arm of the national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, said on Friday that the company had signed a 5-year service contracts with the country's Undersecretariat for Defense Industries to provide logistic support services, planned maintenance and repairs for six command and control aircrafts of the Turkish Air Force.

Turkey's competition authority authorized acquisition of 48.04 percent of systems integration provider Netas Telekomunikasyon A.S. (NETAS) by Chinese telecom and mobile equipment group ZTE Corp, according to the NETAS's statement to Borsa Istanbul on Friday. The 358-million Turkish lira ($101.3 million) agreement was signed on Dec.6.

The Borsa Istanbul Gold Exchange index rose by 0.97 percent in value, with gold trading at 131,620 Turkish liras (some $37,354) per kilogram as of 4.30 p.m. (1330GMT).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate decreased to stand at 3.5230 as of 5 p.m. (1400GMT) on Friday, compared to 3.5300 in Thursday's closing session.

Turkey's exports in November surged by 9.7 percent from a year earlier, while imports advanced six percent, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said on Friday.

The increase in exports left the country with a trade deficit of $4.1 billion for the month, down by 4.1 percent compared with November 2015, TurkStat said.

Turkey's net external debt stock stood at $259 billion at the end of the third quarter, or 30.5 percent of the country's national income, the Treasury said on Friday, marking nearly $3 billion fall from $261.9 billion at the end of June this year, when it was 37 percent of the gross domestic product.

In the first week of the new year, analysts said that investors would follow the inflation figures of Turkey, and externally the U.S. non-agricultural employment data.