UPDATE - Turkish stocks down at Thursday close

UPDATES WITH MORE DAILY FIGURES

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index ended Thursday down 0.06% to close at 1,099.06 points.

After starting the day at 1,102.16 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index fell 0.62 points from 1,099.68 points at Wednesday's close.

On Thursday, the BIST 100 hovered between 1,093.58 and 1,105.98 points -- 18 stocks on the index rose, 35 fell, and the remaining were flat compared to the previous close.

Closing the day with a market value of some 813 billion Turkish liras ($108 billion), the benchmark index posted a daily trading volume of 19.7 billion Turkish liras ($2.6 billion).

Shares of petrochemical producer Petkim, private lender Garanti and energy firm Zorlu saw the highest trading volumes.

Stocks of private Sekerbank registered the best performance, up 9.42%, while shares of energy company Ipek Dogal Enerji suffered the most, losing 6.22%.

The price of one ounce of gold was $1,949.50 by market close, up from $1,930.40 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $40.42 per barrel as of 6.15 p.m. local time (1515GMT) on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Borsa Istanbul announced that it decided to take measures for the volatile shares of some football clubs.

Due to transactions realized in the market, investors are banned from short selling on the shares of Fenerbahce, Trabzonspor Sportif, Galatasaray Sportif, and Besiktas.