Turkey's Borsa Istanbul up at open

Turkey's stock exchange started the midweek trading day up 1.74 percent, or 1,622.28 points, to open at 95,040.93 points on Wednesday.

On the third transaction day of the week, the banking and holding sector indices gained 2.55 percent and 1.90 percent, respectively.

While all sector indices started the day on rise, the leasing factoring sector index posted the best performance, up 3.71 percent.

On Tuesday, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 closed at 93,418.65, up 0.79 percent, or 734.10 points, with a trade volume of 11.2 billion Turkish liras (around $1.72 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate dropped to 6.3470 as of 9.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Wednesday, from 6.5410 at Tuesday's close.

The euro/lira exchange rate fell to 7.2020 in the open market -- from 7.4500 at the previous close -- while one British pound traded for 8.0980 Turkish liras versus 8.3740 at the previous close.

The price of Brent oil rose to $72.36 per barrel as of 10.00 a.m. local time (0700GMT) Wednesday, down from $73.36 at the previous close -- climbing from around $66 at the beginning of the year.