UPDATE – Turkish stocks up at midweek close

UPDATES WITH MORE DAILY FIGURES

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) – Turkey's benchmark stock index ended midweek trading up 0.20% to close at 96,142.18 points on Wednesday.

After starting the day at 95,821.42 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index surged 189.41 points from 95,952.77 points at Monday's close.

There were no transactions on Tuesday due to a public holiday in Turkey to mark the April 23 National Sovereignty and Children’s Day.

During Wednesday's trading, the BIST 100's daily low was 95,821.42 points and it peaked at 96,537.15 points — 47 stocks on the index rose, 46 fell, and seven were flat compared to the previous close.

Closing the day with a market value of some 638 billion Turkish liras ($109.5 billion), the benchmark index posted a daily trading volume of 5.44 billion Turkish liras ($927 million).

Turkish conglomerate Koc Holding, private lenders Garanti Bankasi and Akbank were the BIST 100's top companies by market capitalization.

Stocks of Garanti Bankasi, national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, and Akbank posted the highest trading volumes on Wednesday.

Turkish sports club Besiktas (BJKAS) enjoyed the best performance, as its shares climbed 12.42%, while stocks of conglomerate Ihlas Holding (IHLAS) did the worst with 5.88% loss in the stock value.

One ounce of gold was sold for $1.271,70 at the daily close in Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets, versus previous close of $1,279.50.

A barrel of Brent oil was sold for $74.34 as of 6 p.m. local time (1500GMT) on Wednesday — with a day range of $74.02 to $74.70.

At the beginning of 2019, the price of Brent oil was around $53 per barrel.