UPDATE - Turkish stocks up at midweek close

UPDATES WITH MORE DAILY FIGURES

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index ended the midweek trading day up 0.59 percent to close at 94,070.97 points.

Starting the day at 93,756.33 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index surged 554.02 points from Tuesday's close.

On Wednesday, the BIST 100's daily peak was 94,673.35 points, while 53 stocks on the index rose, 40 fell, and seven were flat compared to the previous close.

The daily trading volume of the benchmark index was 5.78 billion Turkish liras ($1.1 billion), as its total market value was nearly 611.4 billion liras ($116.7 billion).

Private lender Garanti Bankasi, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, and defense company Aselsan posted the highest trade volumes.

By market capitalization, leading listed companies were Turkish conglomerate Koc Holding ($7.16 billion), Garanti Bankasi ($6.36 billion), and Aselsan ($5.91 billion).

Shares of leasing company Is Finansal Kiralama (ISFIN) showed the top performance -- up 8.93 percent -- and stocks of cement producer Afyon Cimento (AFYON) did the worst, losing 4.91 percent.

As of daily close, one U.S. dollar was traded for 5.2610 Turkish liras, while the USD/TRY was 5.2380 at the previous close.

The euro/lira exchange rate was 5.9360, compared with Tuesday's close of 5.9330.

The British pound/Turkish lira rate stood at 6.7270, up from 6.6960 at close on Tuesday.

In Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets, the price of one ounce of gold was $1,215 by market close, versus $1,224 at the previous close.

After hovering between $59.59 and $61.41 during the day, the price of Brent oil was around $59.73 per barrel as of 6 p.m. local time (1500GMT) Wednesday.