By Dilara Zengin
ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark index started the day with a 157.99-point increase to open at 89,427.71 points on Thursday.
In the fourth transaction day of the week, the BIST 100 index rose by 0.18 percent.
The banking sector index went down 0.20 percent, while the holding sector index was up 0.41 percent.
Among all sectors, the investment trust sector index was the best performer -- up by 0.91 percent -- while the leasing and factoring sector index started Thursday with the biggest decline, falling 0.61 percent.
In Wednesday's closing session, the benchmark index decreased by 912.01 points or 1.01 percent to 89,269.72 points with a total trading volume of 4.7 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.29 billion).
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate rose to 3.6500 at 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Thursday, compared with 3.6440 at Wednesday's close.
Meanwhile, Turkey's economic confidence index released on Thursday.
According to Turkish Statistical Institute, the economic confidence index increased by 5 percent compared with the previous month, increasing from 91.5 to 96.1 in March.