Turkey's benchmark stock index up at open

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's stock exchange rose 0.51 percent, or 532.61 points, to open at 104,815.39 points on Wednesday.

The BIST banking and holding sector indexes were up 1.15 and 0.04 percent, respectively.

Among all sector indices, the basic metal sector index posted the best performance, up 1.20 percent, while the leasing factoring sector index did the worst, down 1.11 percent.

On Monday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index closed at 104,282.78, down 3.10 percent, with a 6.1 billion Turkish lira ($1.51 billion) trade volume.

There were no transactions on Tuesday due to May 1, International Labor Day.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange stood at 4.0950 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Wednesday. It was 4.0440 at Monday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate rose to 4.9160, compared with Monday's close of 4.8870.

The price of Brent oil was $73.50 per barrel as of 10.10 a.m. local time (0710GMT) Wednesday.