UPDATE - Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down at midweek's close

UPDATE WITH MORE DAILY FIGURES

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index on Wednesday closed at 120,938.78 points, dropping 0.40% from the previous close.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index started the day at 121,232.62 points. As of the daily close, it had lost 484.56 points from Tuesday's close of 121,423.34 points -- the highest closing level in its history.

During the day, the index's deepest level was 120,442.41 points, while it reached all time high with 121,804.10 points.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was around 829.2 billion Turkish liras ($141 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 14.5 billion Turkish liras ($2.47 billion).

On the third transaction day of the week, 37 stocks on the index rose, 57 were down, and six were flat compared to Tuesday.

The highest trading volumes were posted by national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, insurance firm Gunes Sigorta, and iron/steel producer Kardemir.

Gunes Sigorta was the best performer, with its shares up 19.91%, while real estate investment trust company Halk Gyo dropped the most, down 3.4%.

The price of one ounce of gold was $1,552.05 by market close, up from $1,546.20 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $64.20 per barrel as of 6 p.m. (1500GMT) on Wednesday.