Turkish stocks on rise at Thursday's close

ANKARA

Turkey's benchmark stock index closed Thursday at 1,345.15 points, up 1.10% compared to Wednesday.

Starting the last transaction day of the week at 1,315.49 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index earned 14.67 points over Wednesday's close at 1,330.48 points.

The market will be closed on Friday due to a public holiday in Turkey to mark the April 23 National Sovereignty and Children’s Day.

During the day, the index's value hovered between 1,309.23 points and 1,345.50 points after 77 stocks on the index rose, 21 fell, and two remained flat compared to Monday.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was around 953.2 million Turkish liras ($117.1 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 14.1 billion Turkish liras ($1.7 billion).

The highest trading volumes were posted by private lender Garanti BBVA, iron and steel manufacturer Eregli Demir Celik, and gold miner Koza Altin.

Halk GMYO, a real estate investment trust operating under state lender Halkbank, was the best performer, with its shares up 8%, while stocks of prominent sports club Fenerbahce​​​​​​​ dropped the most, 4.32%.

The price of one ounce of gold was $1,775.00 by market close, down from $1,783.60 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $65.60 per barrel as of 6 p.m. local time (1500GMT) on Thursday.