Turkey's benchmark stock index flat at opening session

By Jeyhun Aliyev

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's stock exchange increased by 0.09 percent, or 85.65 points, to open at 94,902.91 points on Friday.

On the last transaction day of the week, the BIST banking sector index was flat, while the holding sector index gained 0.34 percent.

Among all sector indices, the metal products machinery sector index posted the best performance, up 0.49 percent, while the tourism sector index saw the biggest drop, down 0.86 percent.

On Thursday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 closed at 94,817.26, down 0.58 percent, or 551.33 points, with a trade volume of 10.4 billion Turkish liras ($2.15 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate rose to 4.8520 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Friday, from 4.8170 at Thursday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate climbed to 5.6480 in the open market -- from 5.6330 at the previous close -- while one British pound traded for 6.3660 Turkish liras versus 6.3420 at the previous close.

The price of Brent oil stood at $74.46 per barrel as of 10.00 a.m. local time (0700GMT) Friday, from $74.36 at the previous close.