Turkey's Borsa Istanbul down at opening

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark index started Tuesday with a 611.38-point decrease to open at 88,058.09.

In opening transactions on the second business day of the week, the BIST 100 index fell 0.69 percent, while the banking and holding sector indices went down 0.70 percent and 0.15 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the textile and leather sector index was the best performer -- up 0.28 percent -- while the the chemical/oil/plastics sector index started the day with the biggest decline, falling 0.77 percent.

At Monday's closing session, the benchmark index was down 277.93 points, or 0.31 percent, to close at 88,669.47 points, with a total trading volume of 2.5 billion Turkish liras (approximately $686 million) -- relatively low compared to recent weeks.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate slightly rose to 3.6460 at 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Tuesday, compared with 3.6400 at Monday's close.