ISTANBUL

Turkey's benchmark stock index rose 0.21%, or 246.59 points, on Friday to start the last transaction day of the week at 120,096.24 points.

At Thursday's close, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index was up 0.13% at 119,849.65 points, with a daily trading volume of 11.1 billion Turkish liras (nearly $1.8 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate stood at 5.9860 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Friday, versus 5.9800 at the previous close.

The euro/Turkish lira exchange rate also was unchanged at 6.6000, versus 6.5990, and one British pound traded for 7.8580 Turkish liras. It was 7.8420 at Thursday's close.

One barrel of Brent crude oil sold for around $58.20 as of 10 a.m. local time (0700GMT) on Monday.