Borsa Istanbul flat at opening

Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index BIST 100 rose slightly by 0.07 percent or 77.24 points to open at 118,477.30 points on Wednesday.

The banking sector index was up 0.12 percent while the holding sector dropped 0.03 percent.

Among all sector indices, the insurance sector index was the best performer, gaining 0.78 percent, while the textile, leather sector index saw the biggest decline, falling 0.11 percent.

On Tuesday, The BIST 100 rose 0.99 percent or 1,164.59 points to close at 118,400.06 points, marking its highest close ever, with a total trading volume of 7.5 billion Turkish liras ($1.98 billion).

The USD/Turkish lira rate dropped to 3.7720 at 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Tuesday, compared with the previous day's closing rate of 3.7840.

The euro/lira rate climbed to 4.6500 from Monday’s close of 4.6390.

Brent oil stood at $69.83 per barrel at 9.40 a.m. local time (0640GMT) compared with $69.96 at Tuesday's close.

Analysts said investors would closely follow the U.S. and European countries' Purchase Managers’ Index, which gauges the health of manufacturing sector, and the U.K. employment figures due on Wednesday.