ISTANBUL 

Turkey's benchmark stock index closed Thursday at 1,426.56 points, up sharply by 2.50%.

Starting the day at 1,399.34 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index earned 34.83 points over Wednesday's close at 1,391.73 points.

During the day, the index's lowest value was 1,371.43 points, while its daily high was 1,400.77 points.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was around 1.03 trillion Turkish liras ($123.56 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 22.2 billion Turkish liras ($2.7 billion).

On the fourth transaction day of the week, 97 stocks on the index rose while three fell compared to Wednesday.

The highest trading volumes were posted by private lender Garanti BBVA, gold miner Koza Altin and automotive firm Ford Otosan.

Rim producer Jantsa was the best performer, with its shares up 9.99%, while stocks of conglomerate Net Holding dropped the most, 4.02%.

The price of one ounce of gold was $1,715.10 by market close, up rapidly from $1,687 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $62.70 per barrel as of 6.20 p.m. local time (1520GMT) on Thursday.

Turkish lira gained value by around 1% against foreign exchange rates.