ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark index started the day with a 320.05-point increase to open at 88,851.36 on Thursday.
During the first transactions of the day, the BIST 100 index rose by 0.36 percent while the banking and holding sector indexes advanced by 0.43 and 0.52 percent, respectively.
Among all sectors, the insurance index was the best performer -- 1.66 percent -- while the construction sector started Thursday with the largest decline, falling 0.31 percent.
At Wednesday's closing session, the benchmark index was down 0.49 percent -- declining 433.86 points -- to 88,531.28 points with a total trading volume of 4.1 billion Turkish liras (about $1.14 billion).
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate decreased to 3.5860 at 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Thursday, compared with 3.6080 at Wednesday's close.
Gold held at $1,236.44 an ounce.