While foreign investors reached net purchases of $1.8 billion on the Borsa Istanbul (BIST) since the beginning of the year, they have also taken the largest share of the stock market with exchange rates of 65.7 percent.

According to information compiled from BIST data, foreign investors' net purchases in the stock market, which has broken successive records, have reached $1.8 billion since the beginning of the year. The exchange rates of foreign investors, who realized $14 million in sales in October, stood at 65.7 percent.Foreign investors making net purchases in the first seven months of this year were on the sales side in three months. Foreign investors made a net purchase of $614 million throughout the previous year while they were effective in the BIST 100 index reaching its all-time high with strong purchases.

Analysts said the stocks brought a 41 percent yield to investors from the beginning of the year until the end of October and that foreign investors, thinking long-term in their investments, benefited from this increase to a large extent, with limited daily transactions compared to domestic investors.

After closing 2016 at 78.139 points, the BIST 100 index maintained an upward trend for nine months, excluding September, on a monthly basis, until the end of October. The BIST 100 index, which broke its all-time high monthly closing record with 110.143 points in October with an increase of 7.03 percent compared to the previous month's closing, gained 0.65 percent in dollar terms due to the sharp fluctuations in the currencies. The index closed over 115,000 points on Monday.While foreign investors made the largest purchase of Turkish Airlines (THY) stocks last month at $85.8 million, Arçelik led the way in stocks that were sold the most by foreign investors at $68.2 million.

For stocks that foreign investors made the most net purchases, THY was followed by Garanti Bank with $39 million, Turkcell with $34.3 million, Ereğli Demir Çelik with $23.6 million and Petkim with $18.1 million.

Following Arçelik, the stocks that were sold the most in October by foreign investors were Net Holding with $38.5 million, Halkbank with $28 million and Doğtaş Kelebek Mobilya with $21.6 million.

Analysts suggested that the geopolitical risks in the region and the anticipation to resolve the visa problem with the U.S. increased the interest of foreign investors in THY shares in October. Noting that THY stocks gained 18.6 percent in October, analysts said the sales of profits that were effective in Arçelik following the historic peak in July continued.