Turkish stocks open Friday 0.37% down

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index started the last business day of the week down 0.37% or 351.30 points to open at 95,721.69 points on Friday.

On Thursday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index dropped 0.97% to close at 96,072.99 points with a daily trading volume of 5.29 billion Turkish liras ($925 million).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate stood at 5.7850 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) Friday, compared to 5.7410 at the last close.

The euro/Turkish lira exchange rate was 6.5260, versus 6.4810 at Thursday's close, and one British pound was exchanged for 7.5540 Turkish liras, compared to 7.5140.

One barrel of Brent oil was sold for $70.98 as of 10.15 a.m. local time (0715GMT) on Friday.