By Tuba Sahin
ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index rose by 0.23% or 221.35 points to start Thursday at 96,129.69 points.
On Wednesday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index dropped by 0.53% to close the day at 95,522.11 points with a daily trading volume of 6.6 billion Turkish liras ($1.15 billion).
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate rose to 5.8350 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Thursday, from 5.8110 on Wednesday.
The euro/Turkish lira exchange rate stood at 6.4660, versus 6.4530, and one British pound traded for 7.1430 Turkish liras, up from 7.1020, at previous close.
One barrel of Brent oil was sold for around $59.62 as of 10 a.m. local time (0700GMT) on Thursday.