Turkish stocks up nearly 1 pct at close

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index climbed by 0.99 percent to close at 110,687.74 points on Monday with a 6.1 billion Turkish lira ($1.5 billion) trade volume.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index ended the day with a 1,083.73-point hike from Friday's close of 109,604.01 points. It opened the first business day of the week at 109,860.89 points.

The USD/TRY exchange stood at 4.1050 as of 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) Monday, compared with its previous close of 4.0970.

The euro/lira exchange rate was 5.0860 by market close -- up from 5.0520 at Friday's close -- and one British pound traded for 5.8960 Turkish liras while the GBP/TRY rate was 5.8550 at the previous close.

The BIST Gold Exchange index advanced by 0.37 percent at the daily close. In the Precious Metals and Diamond Markets of Borsa Istanbul, one ounce of gold traded for $1,340.00 as of 4.30 p.m. local time (1330GMT) Monday, up from $1,335.10 at Friday's close.

As of 6 p.m. local time (1500GMT), the price of Brent oil stood at $71.81 per barrel -- hovering between $71.12 and $72.28 during the day -- climbing from around $66 at the beginning of this year.