KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 2 — The FBM KLCI was marginally higher mid-afternoon, in tandem with the sentiment on regional markets and Wall Street following encouraging US factory activity data.

At 3.01pm, the benchmark index was 2.98 points or 0.16 per cent better at 1,780.8 points.    

Regionally, Japan’s Nikkei 225 improved 460.39 points to 14,466.16, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index advanced 105.49 points to 22,194.28 and Singapore’s Straits Times grew 21.40 points to 3,264.69.

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index added 11.72 points to 16,859.24, Plantation Index gained 10.94 points to 8,337.07 and the Industrial Index up 7.43 points to 3,013.88.  

The FBM Emas Index advanced 28.26 points to 12,397.24, FBMT100 Index climbed 25.78 points to 12,141.99, FBM Ace Index increased 22.44 points to 5,086.67 and the FBM 70 Index jumped 52.6 points to 14,228.92.  

Gainers outpaced losers 349 to 273, with 314 counters unchanged, 641 untraded and 13 others were suspended.

A total of 842.675 million shares worth RM1.046 billion were traded.  

Among actives, Patimas Computers inched up half-a-sen to 4.5 sen, Iris Corp added 1.5 sen to RM21.5 sen, Flonic Hi-Tec was flat at 14.5 sen and Daya Materials eased half-a-sen to 30.5 sen.  

In heavyweights, Maybank increased two sen to RM10.42 while Sime Darby and Maxis were both flat at RM9.49 and RM7.08, respectively.

Meanwhile, CIMB and Axiata each fell two sen to RM7.82 and RM6.81, respectively. — Bernama