By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark index started the day with a 364.10-point increase to open at 88,246.07 on Thursday.
During the first transactions of the day, the BIST 100 index rose by 0.41 percent while the banking and holding sector indices advanced by 0.56 and 0.43 percent, respectively.
Among all sectors, the communication index was the best performer -- 0.99 percent -- while the food beverage sector started Thursday with the largest decline, falling 0.19 percent.
At Wednesday's closing session, the benchmark index was down 0.23 percent --declining 200.24 points-- to 87,881.97 points with a total trading volume of 4.7 billion Turkish liras (some $1.27 billion).
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate decreased to 3.6650 at 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Thursday, compared with 3.6970 at Wednesday's close.