Turkey's Borsa Istanbul Goes Up At Open

Turkey's stock exchange rose slightly by 0.48 percent, or 459.95 points, to open at 95,517.18 points on Friday.



On the last transaction day of the week, the banking and holding sector indices increased 0.44 percent and 0.25 percent, respectively.



Among all sector indices, the wholesale and retail trade sector index posted the best performance, up 1.44 percent, while the telecommunications sector index only suffered a decline, down 0.26 percent.



On Thursday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 closed at 95,057.23, up 0.53 percent, or 114.99 points, with a trade volume of 5.3 billion Turkish liras ($1.1 billion).



The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate stood at 4.7360 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Friday, from 4.7380 at Thursday's close. Last month, it hit an all-time high of 4.93.



The euro/lira exchange rate increased to 5.5140 in the open market -- from 5.4950 at the previous close -- while one British pound traded for 6.3040 Turkish liras versus 6.2880 at the previous close.



The price of Brent oil dropped to $73.97 per barrel as of 10.00 a.m. local time (0700GMT) Friday, from $73.87 at the previous close. -