UPDATE - Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down at close

UPDATE WITH MORE DETAILS

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed the midweek at 98,571.46 points on Wednesday, down 0.17% from the previous close.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index started the day at 98,886.10 points. As of the daily close, it dropped 166.06 points from Tuesday's close of 98,737.52 points.

During the day, the index's lowest level was 98,069.46 points, while the highest level was 99,280.05 points.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was around 694.96 billion Turkish liras ($98.5 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 11.3 billion Turkish liras ($1.59 billion).

On the first transaction day of the week, 39 stocks on the index rose, 55 were down, and six were flat compared to Tuesday.

The highest trading volumes were posted by iron/steel producer Kardemir, private lender Garanti, and insurance company Gunes.

Kardemir was the best performer, with its shares up 9.73%, while shares of pharmaceutical manufacturer Deva dropped the most, losing 8.61%.

The price of one ounce of gold was $1,702.50 by market close, up from $1,697.70 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $29.45 per barrel as of 6 p.m. (1500GMT) on Wednesday.