Turkey's benchmark stock index closes Monday down

ANKARA

Turkey's benchmark stock index ended Monday with 0.94% fall to close at 95,952.77 points.

After starting the week at 96,389.79 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index dropped 908.65 points from Friday's close of 96,861.42 points.

Peaking at 96,452.29 points, the BIST 100's daily low was 95,899.48 points during the day -- 30 stocks on the index rose, 59 fell, and 11 were flat compared to the previous close.

Closing Monday with a market value of some 636.5 billion Turkish liras ($110 billion), the benchmark index posted a daily trading volume of 2.32 billion Turkish liras ($398 million).

Turkish conglomerate Koc Holding, private lender Garanti Bankasi, and iron and steel producer Eregli were the top listed companies by market capitalization.

The highest trading volumes were seen in the shares of national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, iron and steel producer Kardemir, and Garanti Bankasi.

Stocks of prominent Turkish sports club Galatasaray (GSRAY) were the top gainers -- up 17.97% -- shares of major electronics and appliances manufacturer Arcelik (ARCLK) saw the largest decline, going down 3.46%.

One ounce of gold was sold for $1,279.50 at the daily close in Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets, versus last week's close of $1,278.50.

A barrel of Brent oil was sold for $73.85 as of 6 p.m. local time (1500GMT) on Monday -- with a day range of $72.06 to $74.31.

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