While the historic peaks in Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index drew investors to the stock market, more than 6,000 new investors entered the stock market in the nine-month period of this year.

After closing 2016 at 78.139 points, the BIST 100 index maintained an upward trend in nine months, excluding September, on a monthly basis, until the end of October. The BIST 100 index, which broke the all-time highest monthly closing record with 110,143 points in October, increasing 7.03 percent compared to the previous month's closing, saw the record high of 115,093 points on Nov. 6.

According to the information compiled from Central Registry Agency (CRA) data, the number of investors who traded at the stock exchange was 1.04 million, including 9,485 foreign and close to 1.03 million domestic investors at the end of last year.

As of the end of September, the number of domestic investors rose to 1.03 million with the addition of 6,061 investors compared to the end of last year, while the number of foreign investors climbed to 9,520 with 35 new additions. Thus, the total number of investors reached 1.04 million with 6,096 new investors.

The portfolio value of foreign investors in the share markets increased by 33.3 percent to TL 208.7 billion at the end of September from TL 156.5 billion at the end of 2016. In the nine-month period, the portfolio value increased by TL 52.2 billion.

At the end of last year, domestic investors' portfolio size increased from TL 90.3 billion to TL 110.8 billion with an increase of 22.7 percent in nine months.

Thus, the portfolio size of the investors in the share market increased by 29.4 percent in the nine-month period from TL 246.8 billion to TL 319.5 billion. Investors' portfolio value increased by TL 72.6 billion in nine months.

As of the end of September, the U.S. investors led the way among the foreign investors in the share market in terms of both the number of investors and the size of portfolios. The U.S. investors' portfolio value stood at TL 48.5 billion at the end of the previous year, while during January-September period, this amount increased by TL 19.7 billion to around TL 68.3 billion. The number of U.S. investors surged by 35 percent in the same period from 1,244 to 1,279.

The U.K. ranked second with 426 investors and a portfolio size of TL 30.2 billion, followed by Luxembourg with 289 investors and a portfolio value of TL 14.7 billion, and Ireland with 173 investors and a portfolio size of TL 14.7 billion.

Qatar was the only non-Western country in the top five. Total portfolio size of five Qatari investors in Borsa Istanbul was TL 9.2 billion.