By Tuba Sahin
ANKARA (AA) – Turkey's benchmark stock index started this week down 0.47 percent or 432.10 points to open at 92,291.29 points.
The BIST banking and holding sector indices declined 0.36 and 0.59 percent, respectively.
Among all sector indices, the insurance sector index posted the best performance, up 8.14 percent, while the sports sector index fell the most, losing 1.22 percent.
On Friday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index slipped 0.62 percent to close at 93,280.71 points, with a trade volume of around 6.5 billion Turkish liras ($1.01 billion).
The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate rose to 6.6850 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT), compared with last week's closing rate of 6.5840.
The euro/lira rate was up at 7.7650 on Monday morning, versus 7.6590 at the previous close, while one British pound traded for 8.6460 Turkish liras, up from 8.5420 at Friday's close.
The price of Brent oil was flat at $77.64 per barrel as of 09.45 a.m. local time (0645GMT) Monday, compared to the previous close.
Turkey's annual inflation stood at 17.90 percent in August, up from 15.85 percent the previous month, the Turkish Statistical Institute announced on Monday.
