KUALA LUMPUR: Buying support in selected counters, led by Public Bank, Maybank and PETRONAS Chemicals, lifted Bursa Malaysia to gain 0.34 per cent at mid-morning.
Public Bank and Maybank were six sen better at RM4.83 and RM10.68, respectively, while Petronas Chemicals added seven sen to RM5.52. The three counters contributed 25.1 points to the composite index.
At 11:07 am, benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) advanced 5.78 points to 1,681.28 from Monday’s close of 1,675.5 after 0.55 of a point higher at 1,676.05.
However, market breadth remained negative, with losers outnumbering gainers 461 to 277, while 400 counters were unchanged, 1,552 untraded, and 14 suspended.
Turnover stood at 1.71 billion shares worth RM757.26 million.
Among other heavyweights, Tenaga Nasional added eight sen to RM14.22, CIMB was five sen better at RM7.42, IHH Healthcare lost one sen to RM8.69 and Press Metal removed five sen to RM8.91.
Among the active stocks, Hong Seng Consolidated was flat at 1.5 sen, Zetrix AI was 1.5 sen to 84 sen, Capital A erased 1.5 sen to 40 sen and OCR Group was down half-a-sen to four sen.
As for the top gainers, Kuala Lumpur Kepong added 34 sen to RM20.46, Concrete Engineering added 27 sen to RM5.17, TMK Chemical improved 16 sen to RM2.23, United Plantations was 12 sen better at RM32.30, and IOI Corporation was eight sen higher at RM4.30.
Among the top losers, Nestle was RM1.04 lower at RM93.40, Hong Leong Industries and Ajinomoto were down 18 sen each to RM18.02 and RM15.30, respectively.
Vitrox fell 15 sen to RM7.01, and KESM erased 13 sen to RM3.92.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index added 13.01 points to 12,464.97, while the FBM Top 100 Index rose 18.02 points to 12,310.01. The FBM Emas Shariah Index edged down 18.16 points to 12,417.22.
The FBM Mid 70 Index gave up 77.96 points to 17,923.80, and the FBM ACE Index was down 65.59 points to 4,662.09.
By sector, the Financial Services Index accumulated 128.11 points to 19,626.0, while the Industrial Products and Services Index added 0.12 of a point to 196.80, the Energy Index slid 9.15 points to 778.48, and the Plantation Index rose 59.79 points to 8,802.23. – BERNAMA
