UPDATE - Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up 1.24% at close

UPDATES WITH MORE DAILY FIGURES

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index increased by 1.24% to close Wednesday at 1,189.29 points.

After starting the day at 1,177.09 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index earned 14.59 points over Tuesday's close of 1,174.70 points.

During the day, the index hovered between 1,172.59 and 1,189.29 points.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was around 871.4 billion Turkish liras ($110.6 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 27.8 billion Turkish liras ($3.5 billion).

On the third transaction day of the week, 65 stocks on the index rose, 32 fell, and three were flat compared to Tuesday.

The highest trading volumes were posted by petrochemical firms Petkim and Tupras, and energy firm Odas.

Energy firm Zorlu was the best performer, with its shares up 9.68%, while stocks of real estate investment trust Halk GYO dropped the most, losing 5.34%.

The price of one ounce of gold was $1,905 by market close, up from $1,870 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 per barrel as of 6.15 p.m. local time (1515GMT) on Wednesday.