Turkish stocks flat at open

By Fatih Erkan Dogan

ANKARA (AA) - The Borsa Istanbul benchmark index rose 64.43 points to open at 74,059.62 points Thursday.

Among the BIST 100 sectors, financial leasing was the best performing sub-index with a 0.45 percent rise while the food and beverage index dropped 0.33 percent.

The markets are expected to closely follow the U.S. Purchase Managers’ Index, which gauges the health of the U.S. manufacturing sector, and the weekly U.S. employment figures.

The Turkish lira was flat against the U.S. dollar to trade at 3.4330 early Thursday, compared to Wednesday closing rate of 3.4340.