Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up at opening

By Bahattin Gonultas

ANKARA (AA) - The BIST 100 index surged 628.31 points to open at 88,458.72 on Monday.

On the first trading day of the week, the benchmark index rose by 0.71 percent while the banking and holding sector indices advanced 1.01 and 0.56 percent, respectively.

Among the sub-indices, the sports sector increased the most, by 1.91 percent. The construction index saw the biggest drop, 0.42 percent, in initial transactions.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate decreased to 3.6158 at 10.25 a.m. local time (0725GMT) on Monday, compared with 3.6267 at Friday's close.

Gold held at $1,234.76 an ounce.