Turkey's Borsa flat at Monday opening

By Dilara Zengin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark index started the day with a 73.06-point increase to open at 89,020.47 points on Monday.

In the first transaction day of the week, the BIST 100 index rose by 0.08 percent.

The banking sector index went up 0.34 percent, while the holding sector index was down 0.18 percent.

Among all sectors, the sport sector index was the best performer -- up by 1.29 percent -- while the metal products machinery sector index started Monday with the biggest decline, falling 1.65 percent.

In Friday's closing session, the benchmark index declined 334.85 points or 0.38 percent to 88,947.40 with a total trading volume of 3.4 billion Turkish liras (approximately $933 million).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate fell to 3.6270 at 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Monday, compared with 3.6410 at Friday's close.

Meanwhile, Turkey's inflation rate was released on Monday.

According to the Turkish Statistical Institute, Turkey's annual inflation was 11.29 percent in March, up from 10.13 percent in February.

Analysts said investors will also follow the manufacturing purchasing managers’ indices of Europe and the U.S. which are also set to be released Monday.