By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index began Thursday up 0.51 percent, or 525.83 points, opening at 103,836.04 points.
On Wednesday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index was down 1.48 percent at closing, reaching 103,310.21 points with a daily trading volume of 8.3 billion Turkish liras ($1.52 billion).
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate stood at 5.4420 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) Thursday, compared to 5.4790 at the last close.
The euro/Turkish lira rate was 6.2260, versus 6.2270 at Wednesday's close, and one British pound was exchanged for 7.2070 Turkish liras, down from 7.2430.
One barrel of Brent oil was sold for $68.56 as of 10 a.m. local time (0700GMT) Thursday.