Turkey's Borsa Istanbul flat at midweek close

ANKARA

Turkey's benchmark stock index ended Wednesday at 1,540.59 points, a slight decrease of 0.14%.

Starting the day at 1,553.41 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index slipped 2.23 points from 1,542.82 points at Tuesday's close.

During the day, the index hovered between 1,529.93 and 1,553.41 points – 31 stocks on the index rose, 67 fell, and two were flat compared to the previous close.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was around 1.2 trillion Turkish liras ($170 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 30.9 billion Turkish liras (nearly $4.4 billion).

The highest trading volumes were posted by state lender VakifBank, polyester producer Sasa Polyester and gold miner Koza Altin.

Sasa Polyester was the best performer with its shares up 9.96%, while stocks of real estate investment trust Ozak dropped the most, 5.60%.

One ounce of gold sold for $1,790.75 by market close, down from $1,819.50, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent oil was around $63.55 per barrel as of 6.10 p.m. local time (1510GMT) on Wednesday, with a daily range of $62.73 to $64.74.