Turkey's Borsa Istanbul flat at opening session

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's stock exchange dropped slightly 0.06 percent, or 57.41 points, to open at 98,573.87 points on Tuesday.

On the second transaction day of the week, the banking sector index decreased 0.15 percent, while the holding sector index rose 0.22 percent.

Among all sector indices, the investment trusts sector index posted the best performance, up 0.67 percent, and the transportation sector index was the worst, down 2.22 percent.

On Monday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 closed at 98,631.27, up 2.04 percent, or 1,973.85 points, with a trading volume of 9.72 billion liras ($1.67 billion).

The USD/TRY exchange rose slightly to 5.7950 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Tuesday. It was 5.7830 at Monday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate was also increased to 6.7140 by market open -- from 6.7020 at the previous close -- and one British pound traded for 7.6445 Turkish liras versus 7.6080 at the previous close.

The price of Brent oil stood at $80.59 per barrel as of 10.00 a.m. local time (0700GMT) Tuesday, compared to $80.60 on Monday.