By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index started the day up 0.33% or 314.23 points to open at 95,729.80 points on Thursday.
On Tuesday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index surged 0.93% to close at 95,415.57 points with a daily trading volume of 6.07 billion Turkish liras ($1.02 billion).
The stock exchange market was closed on Wednesday for May 1 International Labor Day, an official holiday in Turkey.
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate stood at 5.9720 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) Thursday, compared to 5.9550 at Wednesday's close.
The euro/Turkish lira exchange rate was 6.7000, versus 6.6900, and one British pound was exchanged for 7.8100 Turkish liras, compared to 7.8000.
One barrel of Brent oil was sold for $71.77 as of 10.30 a.m. local time (0730GMT) on Thursday.