Turkey's benchmark stock index up at open

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index rose by 0.24 percent or 225,58 points to start the day at 93,973.23 points on Friday.

Among all sector indices, the BIST nonmetal, mineral index showed the best opening -- up 2.99 percent -- while the BIST metal products machinery index posted the worst performance with a 0.29 percent fall.

On Thursday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index rose 1.14 percent to close at 93,747.65 points with a trading volume of 6 billion Turkish liras ($1.06 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate stood at 5.6470 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT), compared with Thursday's closing rate of 5.6490.

The euro/lira rate was 6.4240, versus 6.4420 at the previous close, while one British pound traded for 7.2580 Turkish liras, and the GBP/TRY was 7.2750 at Thursday's close.

The price of Brent oil was $76.12 per barrel as of 10.00 a.m. local time (0700GMT) Friday, up from around $66 at the beginning of this year.