By Gokhan Ergocun
ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkey's benchmark stock index started the transaction week -- shortened by the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday at the end of the holy month Ramadan -- at 104,710.62 points on Wednesday, up by 1.64%, or 1,686.29 points.
At the last week's close, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index was up 0.37% at 103,024.34 points with a daily trading volume of 10 billion Turkish liras ($1.5 billion).
The US dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate dropped to 6.7700 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) Wednesday, compared to 6.8150 at Friday's close.
The euro/Turkish lira exchange rate also dropped to 7.4160 from 7.4280 and one British pound traded for 8.3570 Turkish liras, down from 8.3210 at the previous close.
One barrel of Brent crude oil sold for around $35.55 as of 10.00 a.m. local time (0700GMT) on Wednesday.