UPDATE - Turkey's Borsa Istanbul flat at midweek close

UPDATE WITH MORE DETAILS

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) – Turkey's benchmark stock index increased slightly by 0.03% to 118,079.91 points at close on Wednesday.

After starting the midweek at 118,815.56 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index earned 37.91 points from Tuesday's close of 118,042.00 points.

During the day, the index hovered between 117,535.60 and 119,371.61 points.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was 861.6 billion Turkish liras ($125.9 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 23.5 billion Turkish liras ($3.4 billion).

On the third transaction day of the week, 42 stocks on the index rose, 53 were down and five were flat compared to Tuesday.

The highest trading volumes were posted by real investment trust firm Emlak Konut, defense giant Aselsan and iron/steel producer Kardemir.

Steel machine producer Cemtas was the best performer, with its shares up 10%, while stocks of fertilizer provider Gubretas dropped the most, losing 4.78%.

The price of one ounce of gold was $1,859.35 by market close, up from $1,827.60 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $43.75 per barrel as of 6.30 p.m. local time (1530GMT) on Wednesday.