Turkey's Borsa Istanbul starts week looking down

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index fell 0.21% -- 188.04 points -- on Monday, to start the week at 87,937.00 points.

At Friday's close, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index was down 3.72% at 88,125.04 points, with a daily trading volume of 11 billion Turkish liras ($1.7 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate rose to 6.4930 as of 9:30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Monday, versus 6.4570 at the previous close.

The euro/Turkish lira exchange rate also increased to 7.1970, compared to 7.1020, and one British pound traded for 8.0620 Turkish liras. It was 7.9410 at last week's close.

One barrel of Brent crude oil sold for around $26.82 as of 10 a.m. local time (0700GMT) on Monday, up from Friday's close at $24.93 a barrel.