Turkish stocks up at open

By Dilara Zengin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark index started the day with a 117.79-point increase to open at 98,449.33 points on Wednesday.

On the third transaction day of the week, the BIST 100 index rose 0.12 percent.

The banking and holding sector indices climbed 0.08 percent and 0.28 percent, respectively.

Among all sectors, the textile, leather sector index was the best performer with a 0.70-percent rise, while the wholesale and retail trade sector index started the day with the biggest decline, falling by 0.22 percent.

At the close on Tuesday, the BIST 100 was up 139.56 points or 0.14 percent to reach 98,331.54 points, with a total trading volume of 4.3 billion Turkish liras (approximately $1.2 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate slightly declined to 3.5190 at 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) Thursday, compared with 3.5160 at Tuesday’s close.