Turkish stocks down at daily close

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index ended Monday down with a 0.61% decline to close at 85,545.4 points.

After starting the first business day of the week at 86,505.55 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index fell 526.88 points from 86,072.28 points at Friday's close.

Last week, the benchmark index posted a 1.74% hike. At the beginning of this year, the BIST 100 stood around 89,000 points.

The price of Brent oil was $68.01 per barrel as of 6 p.m. local time (1500GMT) on Monday -- with a day range of $67.28 to $68.03.