UPDATE - Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down at close

UPDATE WITH MORE DETAILS

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index closed the day on Thursday at 1,556.49 points, down 0.54% day-on-day.

After starting the day at 1,574.58 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index lost 8.45 points from Wednesday's close of 1,564.94 points.

During the day, the index's lowest value was 1,551.88 points, while its daily high was 1,580.03 points.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was around 1.18 trillion Turkish liras ($156.15 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 27.94 billion Turkish liras ($3.74 billion).

On the fourth transaction day of the week, 31 stocks on the index rose, 68 fell, and one was unchanged compared to Wednesday.

The highest trading volumes were posted by polyester producer Sasa, glass producer Sisecam and private lender Garanti BBVA.

Food company Kerevitas was the best performer, with its shares up 9.93%, while stocks of telecommunication firm Alcatel dropped the most, 8.47%.

The price of one ounce of gold was $1,739.35 by market close, up from $1,712.50 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $69 per barrel as of 6.15 p.m. local time (1515GMT) on Thursday.