Turkey's Borsa Istanbul flat at Thursday's close

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index ended the day up 0.02% to close at 110,599.43 points on Thursday.

Starting the day at 110,835.16 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index went up 24.76 points from 110,574.68 points at Wednesday's close.

During Thursday's trading, the BIST 100 hovered between 110,584.42 points and 111,274.25 points -- 65 stocks on the index rose, 26 fell, and the remaining were flat compared to the previous close.

Closing the day with a market value of nearly 753 billion Turkish liras ($127 billion), the benchmark index posted a daily trading volume of 6.8 billion Turkish liras ($1.14 billion).

By market capitalization, Turkish conglomerate Koc Holding, private lenders Garanti BBVA and Akbank were the top companies on the BIST 100.

Shares of national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, major appliance producer Vestel, and glass manufacturer, Sise Cam, posted the highest trading volumes.

Shares of major appliance producer Vestel were the best performer of the day, 4.10%, while an insurance company Gunes Sigorta dropped the most, down 4.37%.

An ounce of gold sold for $1,474.80 at the daily close in Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets, versus $1,477.00 at the previous close.

The price of Brent oil was around $66.45 per barrel as of 6 p.m. local time (1500GMT) on Thursday, ranging between $66.03 and $66.46.