Turkish stock up at opening

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index started the day with a 299.06-point or 0.30-percent rise to open at 100,916.76 points on Thursday.

The banking and holding sector indexes increased 0.32 percent and 0.30 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the food beverage index was the best performer with a 0.59-percent rise, while the insurance sector index started the day with the biggest decline, falling by 0.44 percent.

At close on Wednesday, the BIST 100 rose to its highest level of all time -- 100.617,69 points -- with a total trading volume of 4.3 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.22 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate decrease to 3.5040 at 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) Thursday, compared to 3.52 at Wednesday’s close.