Borsa Istanbul down at Thursday open

By Yunus Girgin

ISTANBUL (AA) – Turkey's benchmark stock index opened at 1,450.54 points on Thursday, down 1.12% or 16.46 points from the previous close.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index dropped 4.50% to close at 1,467.00 on Wednesday, with a daily trading volume of 34.3 billion Turkish liras ($4.7 billion).

The US dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate dropped to 7.4100 as of 9:30 a.m. local time (0630GMT), from 7.4110 at the previous close.

The euro/Turkish lira exchange rate rose to 8.9800 from 8.9610, while one British pound traded for 10.1400 Turkish liras, up from 10.1350.

One barrel of Brent crude oil sold for around $55.20 as of 10 a.m. local time (0700GMT).