By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA

Turkey's benchmark stock index, BIST 100, gained 0.10 percent or 119.89 points to open at 116,962.34 points on Thursday.

The banking and holding sector indices rose 0.07 percent and 0.02 percent, respectively.

Among all sector indices, the leasing factoring sector index was the best performer -- gaining 0.68 percent. The real estate investment trusts sector index saw the biggest fall as it went down 0.37 percent.

On Wednesday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index closed at 116,842.44, up 0.11 percent, or 132.51 points, with a 5.42-billion-Turkish lira ($1.43 billion) trade volume.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate went up to 3.8050 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Thursday, compared with Wednesday's closing rate of 3.7960.

The euro/lira rate rose to 4.7250, compared with 4.7160 at the previous day's close.

The price of Brent oil was $64.36 per barrel as of 09.45 a.m. local time (0645GMT) Thursday, versus $64.34 at the close on Wednesday.