KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 15 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia remained in the positive territory mid-afternoon supported by buying interest in small cap companies.

At 3.05pm the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 0.5 of-a-point higher at 1,794.33.

A dealer said the market was volatile today as external sentiment was dampened by the uncertainty in global economic growth.

He said most Asian bourses fell as economists anticipated the US Federal Reserve to scale back its monetary stimulus programme which benefitted Asian emerging economies earlier this year.             

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index added 9.41 points to 17,096.65, the Plantation Index increased 19.01 points to 8,354.01 and the Industrial Index lost 13.26 points to 3,018.7.

The FBM Emas Index declined 7.63 points to 12,515.86, FBM Ace Index decreased 6.38 points to 5,410.76 and the FBM70 Index shed 48.729 points to 14,381.24.

Losers led gainers 365 to 346 while 314 counters were unchanged, 548 untraded and 11 others were suspended.

Volume stood at 1.65 billion shares worth RM1.14 million.

Among active stocks, Astral Supreme gained three sen to 30 sen, DVM Technology inched-up half-a-sen to eight sen and Sona Petroleum added 1.5 sen to 20 sen.

MAS slipped half-a-sen to 33.5 sen while The Media Shoppe was unchanged at 10.5 sen.

In heavyweights, CIMB chalked-up eight sen to RM8.17, Sime Darby and Petronas Chemicals added one sen each to RM9.49 and RM6.63, respectively, but Maybank lost two sen to RM10.48 and Axiata shed one sen to RM6.92. – Bernama