Turkish stocks end Thursday down

ANKARA

Turkey's benchmark stock index ended Thursday down 1.71% to close at 94,498.54 points.

After starting the day at 96,351.05 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index fell 1,643.64 points from 96,142.18 points at Wednesday's close.

Peaking at 96,457.08 points, the BIST 100's daily low was 93,891.66 points during Thursday's trading -- 14 stocks on the index rose, 82 fell, and four were flat compared to the previous close.

Closing the day with a market value of some 626 billion Turkish liras ($107 billion), the benchmark index posted a daily trading volume of 5.71 billion Turkish liras ($967 million).

Turkish conglomerate Koc Holding ($7.04 billion) and private lenders Garanti BBVA ($5.79 billion) and Akbank ($5.42 billion) were the BIST 100's leading companies by market capitalization.

Stocks of Garanti BBVA, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, and Akbank posted the highest trading volumes on Thursday -- accounting for nearly 36.5% of the benchmark index's total trade volume.

Shares of conglomerate Ihlas Holding (IHLAS) saw the highest increase -- up 4.17% -- while stocks of Tofas (TOASO), which operates in the field of automotive, saw the biggest drop, falling 6.31 percent.

One ounce of gold sold for $1.277,00 at the daily close in Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets, versus the previous close of $1.271,70.

The price of Brent oil was $74.97 per barrel as of 6.15 p.m. local time (1515GMT) on Thursday -- with a day range of $74.28 to $75.59.

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