Turkish stock exchange up at opening session

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - The Turkish benchmark stock index opened Friday at 8,993.12 points, gaining 0.48% or 43.33 points versus the previous close.

At Thursday's closing bell, the BIST 100 index rose 1.21% to a new historic high close of 8,949.79 points with a daily transaction volume of 121 billion liras ($3.95 billion).

The US dollar/Turkish lira (USD/TRY) exchange rate was 30.6840 as of 10.20 a.m. local time (GMT0720), the EUR/TRY rate stood at 33.0990, while the GBP/TRY rate was 38.7490.

The price of one ounce of gold was $2,048.55, and the barrel price of Brent oil was around $81.50.