Turkey's Borsa Istanbul flat at open

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's stock exchange rose 0.04 percent, or 35.38 points, to open at 92,723.34 points Thursday.

The BIST banking and holding sector indexes increased 0.13 percent and 0.47 percent, respectively.

Among all sector indices, the mining sector index posted the best performance, up 0.87 percent, while the wholesale and retail trade sector was the worst, down 0.90 percent.

On Wednesday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 closed at 92,707.95, up 1.11 percent or 1,021.60 points.

The US dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate dropped to 5.3090 as of 9:30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Thursday, down from 5.3180 at Wednesday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate remain unchanged at 6.0670 by market open compared to the previous close -- and one British pound traded for 6.8060 Turkish liras over 6.8170 at the previous close.

The price of Brent oil dropped to $63.23 per barrel as of 10.00 a.m. local time (0700GMT) Thursday. It was $63.48 on Wednesday.