Borsa Istanbul up at opening

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s benchmark stock index started the day with a 140.32-point rise to open at 94,422.80 points on Friday.

On the last trading day of the week, the BIST 100 index rose by 0.15 percent.

The banking sector index was up by 0.30 percent while the holding sector declined by 0.23 percent.

The basic metal sector index was the best performer -- going up 0.36 percent -- while the leasing and factoring index started the day with the biggest drop, falling by 1.10 percent.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate rose slightly to 3.5880 at 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Friday, compared with 3.5630 at Thursday’s close.

At the close on Thursday, the BIST 100 was down 239.87 points or by 0.25 percent to reach 94,282.48 points, with a total trading volume of 4.6 billion Turkish liras ($1.29 billion).

Turkish markets remain focused on the second inflation report of 2017 due to be announced by Turkish Central Bank later in the day.

Turkey's foreign trade deficit narrowed by 10.3 percent year-on-year in March, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said Friday.

"In March 2017, foreign trade deficit was 4.49 billion dollars with a 10.3 percent decrease compared with March 2016," the institute said.