Turkey's stock exchange up at Thursday's close

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) – Turkey's benchmark stock index closed at 1,479.12 points on Thursday, rising 0.34% from the previous close.

After starting the day at 1,474.85 points, Borsa Istanbul’s BIST 100 index gained 4.99 points from Wednesday's close of 1,474.13 points.

During Thursday's trading, the BIST 100 hovered between 1,445.17 points and 1,484.95 points – 62 stocks on the index rose, 30 fell, and eight were flat compared to the previous close.

Closing the day with a market value of nearly 1.1 trillion Turkish liras ($134.5 billion), the benchmark index posted a daily trading volume of 10.9 billion Turkish liras ($1.3 billion).

Shares of private lender Garanti BBVA, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, and energy giant Tupras saw the highest trading volumes.

Stocks of RTA Laboratories, operating in biology and health fields, were the top gainers, up 9.96%, while shares of investment company Borusan Yatirim ve Pazarlama dropped the most, 3.89%.

One ounce of gold traded for $1,813.00 by market close, down from $1,815.00 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $73.34 per barrel as of 6.20 p.m. local time (1520GMT).