HOLD Turkish stocks up at open

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark index started the day up 426.46 points, or 0.44 percent, to open at 98,404.00 points on Friday.

The banking and holding sectors indices rose 0.67 percent and 0.47 percent respectively.

Among all sectors, the mining sector index was the best performer, with a 1.27 percent rise. The wood, paper and printing sector was the only sector that suffered, falling 0.05 percent.

The BIST 100 was up 361.02 points or 0.18 percent to reach 97,977.54 points at the close on Friday, with a total trading volume of 4 billion Turkish liras ($1.1 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate fell to 3.5290 at 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) Friday, compared to 3.5340 at Thursday’s close.