Turkish stocks close Wednesday lower

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) - Turkiye's benchmark stock index ended Wednesday at 2,460.43 points, down 0.14% from the previous close.

Starting the day at 2,482.66 points, Borsa Istanbul’s BIST 100 index lost 3.3 points from Tuesday's close of 2,463.76 points.

The banking index lost 1.57%, while the holding index lost 1.35%. Among the sector indices, mining was the best performer with 8.33%, while financial leasing and factoring saw the biggest drop, 5.81%.

BIST 100 index also saw its all-time high with 2,497.83 points in the first half of the day.

Closing the day with a market value of around 1.9 trillion Turkish liras ($129 billion), the benchmark index posted a daily trading volume of 62 billion Turkish liras ($4.25 billion).

The highest trading volumes were posted by national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, and private lender Garanti BBVA and glass maker Sise.

An ounce of gold traded for $1,978.30 by market close, up from $1,951.50 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil jumped to $102.66 per barrel as of 7.20 p.m. local time (1620GMT) on Wednesday, up 2.05% from the previous close.