UPDATE – Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down at close

UPDATE WITH MORE DETAILS

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) – Turkey's benchmark stock index closed at 98,842.24 points on Monday, down 2.24% from the previous close.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index started the day at 99,606.40 points. As of the daily close, it dropped 2,267.87 points from Thursday's close of 101,110.11 points.

Last Friday, the market was closed due to May 1 International Labor Day.

During the day, the index's lowest level was 98,305.57 points and the highest was 100,253.75 points.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was around 696 billion Turkish liras ($99.8 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 8.87 billion Turkish liras ($1.26 billion).

On the first transaction day of the week, 23 stocks on the index rose, 76 were down, and one was flat compared to Thursday.

The highest trading volumes were posted by private lender Garanti, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, and defense giant Aselsan.

Automotive firm Karsan was the best performer, with its shares up 9.64%, while shares of pharmaceutical manufacturer Deva dropped the most, losing 10%.

The price of one ounce of gold was $1,706.50 by market close, down from $1,717.15 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $26.20 per barrel as of 6 p.m. (1500GMT) on Monday.