UPDATE – Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up 0.31% at close

UPDATE WITH MORE DETAILS

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) – Turkey's benchmark stock index rose 0.31% to 1,195.67 points at the close on Monday.

Borsa Istanbul on Monday removed two zeros from its indices — including BIST 100 and BIST 30. It had announced the decision in February and completed test phases last week.

Previously, the stock index, established in 1987, had removed two zeros in 1997.

After starting the week at 1,199.57 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index gained 3.66 points from Friday's close.

During the day, the index hovered between 1,197.36 and 1,203.42 points.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was 875 billion Turkish liras ($128 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 18.9 billion Turkish liras ($2.8 billion).

On the first transaction day of the week, 48 stocks on the index rose, five were down and the remaining flat compared to Friday.

The highest trading volumes were posted by real investment trust firm Emlak Konut, defense giant Aselsan, and private lender Garanti.

Do-Co, a subsidiary of Oyak, the pension fund of the Turkish Armed Forces, was the best performer, with its shares up 10%, while stocks of Alkim Kimya, which produces chemical materials, dropped the most, losing 3.90%.

Meanwhile, one ounce of gold sold for $1,937.50 by market close, up from $1,895.80 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $43.09 per barrel as of 6 p.m. local time (1500GMT) on Monday.

At the beginning of this year, a barrel of Brent oil sold for around $58.