Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up over 1 pct at open

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's stock exchange rose by 1.11 percent, or 1,135.44 points, to open at 103,027.12 points on Thursday.

On the fourth transaction day of the week, the banking and holding sector indices increased 1.51 percent and 0.88 percent, respectively.

Among all sector indices, the basic metal sector index posted the best performance, up 1.63 percent, while the wood paper print sector index saw a decline, down 1.64 percent.

On Wednesday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 closed at 101,891.68, down 1.39 percent, or 1,436.06 points, with a 7.2-billion Turkish lira ($1.47-billion) trade volume.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate dropped by nearly 3 percent to 4.6970 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Thursday, from 4.8390 at Wednesday's close.

After the rate reaching its historical high with 4.93, Turkey's Central Bank took steps to limit the depreciation of Turkish lira by raising the late liquidity window interest rate from 13.50 to 16.50 percent. Following the bank's move, the exchange rate dropped steeply to around 4.57.

The euro/lira exchange rate also fell to 5.5200 by market open -- from 5.6650 at the previous close -- and one British pound traded for 6.2920 Turkish liras versus 6.4850 at the previous close.

The price of Brent oil stood at $79.48 per barrel as of 10.00 a.m. local time (0700GMT) Thursday, up from $79.34 at the previous close.