Turkey's Borsa Istanbul flat at close

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed the day at 106,805.20 points on Thursday.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index started the day at 106,802.94 points. As of the daily close, it slightly rose 20.11 points from Wednesday's close of 106,785.08 points.

During today's trading, the index hovered between 106,314.92 and 107,306.97 points.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was around 725 billion Turkish liras ($127 billion) by market close, and the daily trading volume was 7.8 billion Turkish liras (some $1.37 billion).

On Thursday, 42 stocks on the index rose, 48 were down, and the remaining were flat compared to Wednesday.

The top-listed companies by market value were Turkish conglomerate Koc Holding and private lenders Garanti and Akbank.

The highest trading volumes were posted by national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, Gersan and Garanti.

An electrical company Gersan was the best performer on Thursday, with its shares up 14.98%, while stocks of conglomerate Ihlas Holding dropped the most, down 3.13%.

The price of one ounce of gold was around $1,471.10 by market close, down from $1,477.60 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $63.51 per barrel as of 6 p.m. (1500GMT) on Thursday.