UPDATE – Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down at close

UPDATES WITH MORE DETAILS

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) – Turkey's benchmark stock index dropped by 0.74% to close Thursday at 1,180.43 points.

After starting the day at 1,187.64 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index lost 8.86 points over the midweek's close of 1,189.29 points.

During the day, the index hovered between 1,175.20 and 1,191.52 points.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was around 866 billion Turkish liras ($109.33 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 21.2 billion Turkish liras ($2.7 billion).

On the fourth transaction day of the week, 32 stocks on the index rose, 68 fell compared to Wednesday.

The highest trading volumes were posted by petrochemical firm Petkim, medicine producer Eczacibasi and energy firm Zorlu.

Food firm Kerevitas was the best performer, with its shares up 9.94%, while stocks of energy company Ipek dropped the most, losing 4.85%.

The price of one ounce of gold was $1,844 by market close, down from $1,905 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $42.50 per barrel as of 6.15 p.m. local time (1515GMT) on Thursday.