Turkey's Borsa Istanbul breaks record at Thursday close

ANKARA

Turkey's benchmark stock index closed Thursday at a record 1,313.02 points, up 1.41%.

Starting the day at 1,293.73 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index rose 18.30 points from the midweek's close of 1,294.72 points.

During the day, the index saw an all-time high of 1.325.70 points.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was around 966 billion Turkish liras ($125 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 55.4 billion Turkish liras (nearly $7.3 billion).

Compared to Tuesday, 73 stocks on the index rose, while 23 fell.

The highest trading volumes were posted by private lenders Garanti BBVA and Yapi Kredi, as well as iron/steel producer Kardemir.

Fertilizer manufacturer, Gubre Fabrika was the best performer, with its shares up 10%, while stocks of iron producer Eregli Demir Celik dropped the most, losing 4.26%.

Meanwhile, the Turkish lira rallied against other exchange rates as stocks in the country gained ground on Thursday following an interest rate hike by the Central Bank.

In line with market expectations, the bank raised its one-week repo rate -- also known as its policy rate -- by 475 basis points to 15%.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $44.23 per barrel as of 6.15 p.m., local time (1515GMT), on Thursday.