Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up at opening session

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's stock exchange rose 0.79 percent, or 761.18 points, to open at 97,215.75 points Monday.

The BIST banking and holding sector indices rose 1.18 percent and 0.85 percent, respectively.

Among all sector indices, the leasing factoring index saw the highest opening -- up 2.91 percent -- while the BIST insurance index posted the worst performance with a 0.48-percent fall.

Last week, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 on Friday closed at 96,454.57, up 1.03 percent, or 999.39 points, with a trading volume of 7.3 billion Turkish liras ($1.3 billion).

The USD/TRY exchange rate dropped to 5.6350 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Monday. It was 5.6450 at Friday's close.

The euro/Lira exchange rate was up at 6.4990 by market open -- from 6.4890 at the previous close -- and one British pound traded for 7.3750 Turkish liras versus 7.3670 at the previous close.

The price of Brent oil rose to $80.38 per barrel as of 10.00 a.m. local time (0700GMT) Monday. It was $79.78 on Friday.