Borsa Istanbul flat at open

By Jeyhun Aliyev

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's stock exchange went slightly down 0.04 percent, or 41.73 points, to open at 109,211.46 points on Thursday.

The banking sector indices gained 0.09 percent and the holding sector indices declined 0.30 percent.

The leasing factoring sector index posted the best performance, up 1.60 percent, while the real estate investment trusts sector index saw the largest fall, losing 0.44 percent.

On Wednesday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 closed at 109,253.20, down 1.32 percent, or 1,459.50 points, with a 8.9 billion Turkish lira ($2.1 billion) trade volume.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange slightly rose to 4.1580 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Thursday. It was 4.1480 at Wednesday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate went up to 5.1470 on Thursday, versus to 5.1370 at the previous close.

The price of Brent oil climbed to $72.28 per barrel as of 10.00 a.m. local time (0700GMT) Thursday, compared to $72.06 per barrel as of 07.30 p.m. local time (0430GMT) on Wednesday.