Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up at opening

By Can Erozden

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index started the day with a 542.01-point, or a 0.51 percent increase, to open at 107,067.46 points on Thursday.

The banking and holding sector indexes rose by 0.01 and 0.45 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the chemical, petroleum and plastic sectors index were the best performers with a 3.74 percent rise, while the trade sector started the day with the biggest decline, falling by 0.38 percent.

Turkey’s benchmark stock index had advanced by 0.36 percent to close at 106,525.44 points on Wednesday.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate increased to 3.5390 at 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) Thursday, compared with 3.5350 at Wednesday's close.