Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up at open

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's stock exchange rose 0.38 percent, or 394,38 points, to open at 104,264.40 points on Thursday.

The banking and holding sector indices climbed 0.78 percent and 0.48 percent, respectively.

Among all sector indices, the textile and leather sector index posted the best performance, up 1.47 percent, while the real estate investment trusts sector index saw the biggest decline, down 3.21 percent.

On Wednesday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 closed at 103,869.02, down 1.18 percent, or 1,244.36 points, with a 7.4 billion Turkish lira ($1.66 billion) trade volume.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate dropped to 4.4630 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Thursday, from 4.5030 at Wednesday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate also fell to 5.2160 by market open -- from 5.2320 at the previous close -- and one British pound traded for 5.9570 Turkish liras versus 5.9980 at the previous close.

The price of Brent oil stood at $77.42 per barrel as of 10.00 a.m. local time (0700GMT) Thursday, down from $77.72 at the previous close.