ANKARA 

Turkey's benchmark stock index started Thursday at 102,418.14 points, up 0.28% or 260.61points.

On Wednesday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index went up 0.17 % to close the day at 102,157.53 points with a daily trading volume of some 13 billion Turkish liras ($2 billion).

The US dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate dropped to 6.7900 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Thursday, compared to 6.7930 at Wednesday's close.

The euro/Turkish lira exchange rate also went down to 7.4410 versus 7.4600, and one British pound traded for 8.2750 Turkish liras versus 8.3590 at the previous close.

One barrel of Brent crude oil sold for around $36.27 as of 10 a.m. local time (0700GMT).