UPDATE - Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down at close

UPDATES WITH MORE DETAILS

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) – Turkey's benchmark stock index dropped 0.27% to 114,138.95 points in the closing session of Thursday.

After starting the day at 114,392 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index lost 309.96 points from Wednesday's close of 114,448.91 points.

During the day, the index hovered between 113,419.64 points and 114,975.19 points.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was around 819.3 billion Turkish liras ($119.7 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 17.8 billion Turkish liras ($2.6 billion).

On the fourth transaction day of the week, 39 stocks on the index rose, 57 were down, and four were flat compared to Wednesday.

The highest trading volumes were posted by iron/steel producer Kardemir, automotive producer Karsan, and chemical giant Petkim.

Energy company Zorlu was the best performer, with its shares up 6.25%, while insurance firm Gunes dropped the most, losing 7.87%.

The price of one ounce of gold was $1,761 by market close, down from $1,771.55 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $40.60 per barrel as of 6 p.m. (1500GMT) on Thursday.