UPDATE – Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down at midweek close

UPDATES WITH MORE DETAILS

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) – Turkey's benchmark stock index dropped 0.52% to 118,712.51 points at the closing session of Wednesday.

After starting the midweek at 119,693.80 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index lost 626.34 points from Tuesday's close of 119,338.85 points.

During the day, the index hovered between 118,576.91 and 120,203.44 points. The index, which reached its historical high of 125,536.60 points on Jan. 22 and dropped to below 82,000 in March, since the normalization period starting in June has recovered almost all its losses.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was 846.6 billion Turkish liras ($128.18 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 29.2 billion Turkish liras ($4.25 billion).

On the third transaction day of the week, 38 stocks on the index rose, 61 were down and one was flat compared to Tuesday.

The highest trading volumes were posted by real investment trust firm Emlak Konut, iron/steel producer Kardemir and glass producer Sisecam.

Hospital chain Medicalpark was the best performer, with its shares up 7.84%, while energy firm Odas dropped the most, losing 5.24%.

The price of one ounce of gold was $1,801 by market close, up from $1,779.80 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $43.05 per barrel as of 6 p.m. (1500GMT) on Wednesday.