Turkey's Borsa Istanbul starts week on low note

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index fell 2.79%, or 3,060.64 points, on Monday to start the week at 106,539.89 points.

At Friday's close, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index was down 1.98% at 109,600.53 points, with a daily trading volume of 8.2 billion Turkish liras ($1.4 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate stood at 6.1700 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Monday, versus 6.1070 at the previous close.

The euro/Turkish lira exchange rate rose to 7.0370, compared to 6.9130, and one British pound traded for 8.0590 Turkish liras. It was 7.9420 at the last week's close.

One barrel of Brent crude oil sold for around $33.47 as of 10 a.m. local time (0700GMT) on Monday.

The price of Brent crude oil fell to as low as $32 early morning, nearly 30% down from previous close as OPEC and non-OPEC countries failed to reach an agreement to make deeper cuts into their production levels.