By Tuba Sahin
ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index rose by 0.54% or 540.60 points to start Thursday at 100,618.07 points.
On Wednesday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index surged 1.27% to close the day at 100,077.47 points with a daily trading volume of 7.4 billion Turkish lira ($1.3 billion).
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate decreased to 5.6640 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Thursday, from 5.6780 on Wednesday.
The euro/Turkish lira exchange rate stood at 6.2530, versus 6.2560, and one British pound traded for 6.9350 Turkish liras, up from 6.9260, at the previous close.
One barrel of Brent oil was sold for around $60.49 as of 10.15 a.m. local time (0715GMT) on Thursday.