Turkish stocks flat at open after hitting close record

BIST 100 index gains 0.02 percent at opening; lira continues to gain ground against U.S. dollar

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index went up 0.02 percent to open at 119,677.05 points on Thursday, following its highest-ever close of 119,648.37 points Wednesday.

Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index rose 28.12 points, while the banking index was down 0.14 percent -- worst performance among all sectors at open.

The BIST investment trust index increased the most -- up 0.46 percent -- while the BIST holding index was flat with 0.03 percent hike.

On Wednesday, the BIST 100 hit its all-time peak at 119,672.98 points with a 8.5 billion Turkish lira ($2.26 billion) trade volume.

The USD/TRY rate continued its recent downward trend on Thursday morning. One dollar traded at 3.7360 liras as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT), while the exchange rate was 3.7480 on Wednesday compared with last Friday's closing rate of 3.8020.

The euro/lira rate rose to 4.6590 on Thursday morning, up from 4.6360 at the previous close.

The price of Brent oil was $70.92 per barrel as of 10 a.m. local time (0700GMT) Thursday, versus $69.72 at Wednesday's close.

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