By Gokhan Ergocun
ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index started Thursday at 98,920.12 points with a daily increase of 0.23% or 228.09 points.
On Wednesday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index dropped by 1.15% to close the day at 98,692.03 points with a daily trading volume of 6.9 billion Turkish liras ($1.2 billion).
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate dropped to 5.7220 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Thursday, compared to 5.7320 at Wednesday's close.
The euro/Turkish lira exchange rate rose to 6.3900, versus 6.3690, and one British pound traded for 7.4100 Turkish liras, while it was 7.4000 at the previous close.
One barrel of Brent crude oil sold for around $60.40 as of 10 a.m. local time (0700GMT).