UPDATE - Turkish stocks up 0.52% at daily close

UPDATES WITH MORE DAILY FIGURES

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index ended Thursday up 0.52% to close at 102,447.26 points.

Starting the day at 102,311.82 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index surged 525.11 points from the midweek close at 101,922.15 points.

During Thursday trading, the BIST 100 hovered between 101,746.12 points and 103,008.99 points -- 38 stocks on the index rose, 49 fell, and 13 were flat compared to the previous close.

Closing the day with a market value of nearly 680 billion Turkish liras ($118 billion), the benchmark index posted a daily trading volume of 9.05 billion Turkish liras ($1.57 billion).

By market capitalization, Turkish conglomerate Koc Holding ($8.16 billion), private lenders Garanti BBVA ($7.08 billion), and Akbank ($6.88 billion) were the leading companies of BIST 100.

Shares of Garanti BBVA, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, and state lender Halkbank saw the highest trading volumes on Thursday -- accounting for 37.8% of the benchmark index's total trade volume.

Stocks of telecommunication systems integration provider Netas (NETAS) were the top gainers, rising 19.89%, while chemical and paint producer Polisan Holding (POLHO) saw the biggest drop, falling 5.8%.

An ounce of gold was sold for $1,504.00 at the daily close in Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets, versus $1,492.70 at the previous close.

The price of Brent oil was $59.41 per barrel as of 6 p.m. local time (1500GMT) on Thursday, with a day range of $58.91 to $61.39.

At the beginning of 2019, a barrel of Brent oil was sold for around $53.