Borsa Istanbul down at opening

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark index started the day with a 624.06-point decrease to open at 89,982.40 on Wednesday.

On the third transaction day of the week, the BIST 100 index declined by 0.69 percent.

The banking and holding sector indices fell 0.74 percent and 0.78 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the informatics sector index was the best performer -- up 0.30 percent -- while the transport index started Wednesday with a drop of 1.19 percent.

In Tuesday's closing session, the benchmark index was down 295.65 points or 0.33 percent to 90,606.46 with a total trading volume of 4.6 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.27 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate rose to 3.6350 at 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Wednesday, compared with 3.5930 at Tuesday's close.

There are no major local data releases Wednesday, and the local market is expected to follow the Eurozone's current account figures and the United States' existing home sales data.