KL shares higher at mid-day; CI rises 15.4 pts

By BERNAMA

Bursa Malaysia ended the morning session on a positive zone mid-day, led by buying support for banking and energy counters.

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) ended the lunch break 15.4 points higher at 1,616.32 versus Thursday’s close of 1,600.92, after moving between 1,609.4 and 1,619.48 throughout the morning trading session.

The index opened 8.48 points at 1,609.4 this morning.

Market breadth was positive with gainers outpacing gainers 490 to 269 with 297 counters unchanged, 696 untraded and 21 others were suspended.

Turnover amounted to 1.09 billion shares worth RM698.1 million.

A dealer said equity investors also took cue from Bank Negara Malaysia’s monetary statement yesterday that the nation’s economy is expected to see more moderate growth this year after expanding by about 5% in 2015.

Leading the top gainers, both Public Bank and PPB each rose 32 sen to RM18.18 and RM15.94, respectively, Hong Leong Financial increased 30 sen to RM13.02, Petronas Dagangan accumulated 24 sen to RM24.04 and Hong Leong Industries added 21 sen to RM5.80.

Of top losers, Aeon reduced 18 sen to RM11, Latitude decreased 17 sen to RM7.30, British American Tobacco lost 12 sen to RM54.38 and Nestle dropped 10 sen to RM73.32.

Among heavyweights, TNB edged up 18 sen to RM12.80, Maybank added 10 sen to RM12.80, Genting Bhd was 16 sen better at RM7.18 and Genting Malaysia perked 10 sen to RM4.16.

Among actives, Sanichi inched up 0.5 sen to 7.5 sen, XOX added 1 sen to 17 sen, while Instacom and RGB were unchanged at 28.5 sen and 16.5 sen respectively.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index garnered 93.21 points to 11,270.09, the FBMT100 Index increased 92.68 points to 10,974.09 and the FBM Emas Syariah Index accumulated 74.95 points at 12,180.55.

The FBM 70 advanced 63.93 points to 12,638.10 and the FBM ACE added 46.66 points to 5,901.06.

Sector-wise, the Industrial Index perked 13.55 points to 3,112.22, the Finance Index garnered 152.58 points for 13,534.48 and the Plantation Index was 25.76 points higher at 7,453.42.