By Jeyhun Aliyev

ANKARA

Turkey's stock exchange fell slightly 3.49 points, to open at 98,987.52 points on Thursday.

The Borsa Istanbul banking sector index dropped 0.31 percent, while BIST holding sector index was up 0.03 percent.

Among all sector indices, the investment trusts sector index posted the best performance, up 0.85 percent, while the banking sector index performed the worst.

On Wednesday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 closed at 98,991.01, up 0.53 percent, or 524.59 points, with a trade volume of 9.4 billion Turkish liras (around $1.7 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate fell to 5.6190 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Thursday, compared with 5.6950 at Wednesday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate also dropped to 6.4570 by market open -- from 6.5760 at the previous close -- and one British pound traded for 7.3550 Turkish liras versus 7.4850 at the previous close.

The price of Brent oil stood at $79.89 per barrel as of 10.00 a.m. local time (07000GMT) Thursday, starting the day at $80.33 -- climbing from around $66 at the beginning of 2018.