Borsa Istanbul up at Friday's open

By Tuba Sahin

ISTANBUL (AA) – Turkey’s benchmark stock index opened the last transaction day of the week at 1,434.57 points on Friday, rising 0.48% or 6.84 points from the previous close.

At Thursday’s close, Borsa Istanbul’s BIST 100 index was up 0.54% at 1,427.73 points, with a daily trading volume of 19.9 billion Turkish liras ($2.4 billion).

The US dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate dropped to 8.2900 as of 9:30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Friday, from 8.3060 at the previous close.

The euro/Turkish lira exchange rate also dropped to 9.9900 from 10.0280, while one British pound traded for 11.5400 Turkish liras, down from 11.5490 at Thursday’s close.

One barrel of Brent crude oil sold for around $68.25 as of 10 a.m. local time (0700GMT).