Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up at opening session

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkey's stock exchange climbed 0.43 percent, or 400.7 points, to open at 94,523.72 points Monday.

On the first transaction day of the week, the banking and holding sector indices rose 1.50 percent and 0.27 percent, respectively.

Among all sector indices, the banking sector index posted the best performance, while the sports sector index was the worst, down 1.11 percent.

Last week, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 closed at 94,123.02, up 1.88 percent or 1,735.61 points.

The USD/TRY exchange rate increased slightly to 5.4350 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Monday. It was 5.4140 at Friday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate also rose slowly to 6.1960 by market open -- from 6.1890 at the previous close -- and one British pound traded for 7.0860 Turkish liras over 7.0730 at the previous close.

The price of Brent oil stood at $72.67 per barrel as of 10.00 a.m. local time (0700GMT) Monday. It was $72.69 on Friday.

Turkey's annual inflation in October stood at 25.24 pct, up 0.72 points from 24.52 pct in September, Turkish Statistical Institute announced on Monday.