Borsa Istanbul goes up at close

ANKARA (AA) - Borsa Istanbul advanced while the Turkish lira retreated against the U.S. dollar on Thursday.

The BIST-100 index closed the day at 77,843.49 points, up 0.26 percent or 200.3 points, performing its upward trend after it slipped 0.45 percent at the close on Wednesday.

On the fourth trading day of the week, the banking sector index rose about 1.04 percent and the holding sector index was also up 0.50 percent.

During the day, the European Central Bank kept its interest rates unchanged and left its quantitative easing efforts intact.

The U.S. dollar versus Turkish lira, which started early trading hours from 2.9320, increased to 2.9410 at 6 p.m. local time (1500 GMT).