Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up at opening

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark index started Friday with a 328.76-point increase to open at 89,331.33.

During opening transactions on the last business day of the week, the BIST 100 index rose 0.37 percent.

The banking and holding sector indices went up 0.50 percent and 0.45 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the sports sector index was the best performer -- up 0.69 percent -- while the leasing and factoring index started the day with the biggest decline, falling 0.05 percent.

At Thursday's closing session, the benchmark index was down 482.34 points, or 0.54 percent, to close at 89,002.56 points, with a total trading volume of 3.8 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.01 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate rose slightly to 3,7570 at 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Friday, compared with 3.7520 at Thursday's close.

Meanwhile, analysts say investors are expected to take action based off an industrial production report in the United Kingdom as well as employment and non-farm payroll data from the United States which are set to be released Friday.