Borsa Istanbul down at Friday open

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index opened at 1,548.53 points on Friday, slipping 0.15% or 2.40 points from the previous close.

At Thursday's close, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index was down 0.72% at 1,550.93 points, with a daily trading volume of 28.35 billion Turkish liras ($3.8 billion).

The US dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate rose to 7.3600 as of 9:30 a.m. local time (0630GMT), from 7.3530 at the previous close.

The euro/Turkish lira exchange rate was also up to 8.7700 from 8.7520, while one British pound traded for 10.2300 Turkish liras, down from 10.2560 at Thursday's close.

One barrel of Brent crude oil sold for around $62.44 as of 10 a.m. local time (0700GMT).