Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up at open

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's stock exchange reached its highest-ever level, reaching 121,341.20 points, on Monday morning.

BIST 100 index rose 0.53 percent or 639.28, while the banking and holding sector indices rose 0.79 percent and 0.26 percent, respectively.

Among all sector indices, the transportation sector index was the best performer, up 1.51 percent, while only the insurance sector index saw a slight decrease of 0.1 percent.

On Friday, Borsa Istanbul closed the week at 120,701.92 with an increase of 1.77 percent or 2,097.87 points from the previous day.

The U.S. dollar remained at 3.7560 Turkish liras at 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT), compared to Friday's closing rate.

The euro-lira rate slightly dropped to 4.6630 from the previous week’s close, at 4.6690.

The price of Brent oil stood at $70.03 per barrel as of 9.00 a.m. local time (0600GMT) Monday, compared to $70.22 at the previous close.

The Turkish Statistical Institute is to release the economic confidence index on Tuesday and tourism and foreign trade statistics on Wednesday.