Turkish stocks up more than 300 points at opening

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's BIST 100 stock index opened Tuesday up 300.03 points at 99,742.14 points, a 0.30 percent rise on Monday’s close.

The banking and the holding sectors rose 0.37 and 0.47 percent respectively while the best performing sector was leasing and factoring, which rose 0.95 percent.

The food and beverage index started the day with the biggest drop, down 0.25 percent.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate fell to 3.5150 at 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT), compared with 3.5220 at Monday’s close.

The BIST 100 surged by 499.24 points, or 0.50 percent, to hit a record high of 99,442.11 points at the close of trade on Monday, with a total trading volume of 4.3 billion Turkish liras ($1.22 billion).