Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down nearly 2% at close

ISTANBUL

Turkey's benchmark stock index closed the day at 113,684.01 points on Friday, down 1.94% from the previous close.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index started the day at 115,142.77 points. As of the daily close, it lost 2,248.04 points from Thursday's close of 115,932.05 points.

During Friday's trading, the index hovered between 112,617.20 points and 115,570.89 points.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was around 780.2 billion Turkish liras ($131.2 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 14.5 billion Turkish liras ($2.4 billion).

On the last transaction day of the week, 10 stocks on the index rose, 89 were down, and one was flat compared to Thursday.

The highest trading volumes were posted by national flag carrier Turkish Airlines, defense giant Aselsan and chemical producer Petkim.

Cement producer Baticim was the best performer, with its shares up 19.88%, while real estate investment trusts firm Alarko Gmyo dropped the most, down 7.36%.

The price of one ounce of gold was around $1,547.30 by market close, up from $1,520.00 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $68.80 per barrel as of 6 p.m. (1500GMT) on Friday.

After the U.S.' airstrike early Friday which killed top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad, gold and oil prices posted significant rise.