Turkey's Borsa Istanbul starts year looking up

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index started the first trading day of the New Year with a rise of 0.42% or 477.55 points to open Thursday at 114,902.51 points.

The BIST 100 index closed 2019 at 114,424.96 points, down 0.29%, with a daily trading volume of 9 billion Turkish liras ($1.5 billion).

The Turkish stocks was closed on Wednesday due to the New Year's Day.

The index, which started 2019 at around 90,000 points, saw 83,500 points level during the year, and topped 115,000 points in December.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate hovered between 5.16 and 6.19 during the last year. It stood at 5.9510 versus 5.95 as of the end of 2019.

The euro/Turkish lira exchange rate dropped to 6.6680, compared to 6.6820, and one British pound traded for 7.8810 Turkish liras, as the GBP/TRY rate was 7.8750 by market close on Tuesday.

The price of Brent oil was around $66.25 per barrel as of 10.00 a.m. local time (0700GMT) Thursday. Its bottom level was $55.9, while the highest level was around $75.