KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 10 — Shares on Bursa Malaysia remained firmer at mid-morning today on follow-through buying in selected heavyweights, led by banking and finance stocks, dealers said.

As of 11.02am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) increased 18.3 points or 1.05 per cent to 1,765.33 after opening at 1,753.14.

Gains were mostly seen in CIMB Group, Petronas Gas, Petronas Dagangan, Public Bank, Maxis, SapuraKencana Petroleum and Tenaga Nasional, which collectively contributed more than one point each to the benchmark index’s rise.

Elsewhere, regional bourses are also on the uptrend with Japan’s Nikkei 225 surging 151.33 points to 14,356.56, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 155.79 points to 22,906.44 and Singapore’s Straits Times increased 10.62 points to 3,098.82.

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index jumped 173.24 points to 16,560.11, the Plantation Index improved 38.3 points to 8,263.01 and the Industrial Index increased 38.75 points to 2,989.3.

The FBM Emas Index went up 114.011 points to 12,222.98, the FBM100 Index was 111.66 points higher at 11,977.53, the FBM 70 increased 76.75 points to 13,793.21 and the FBM Ace rose 44.21 points to 5,064.06.

Gainers trounced losers by 473 to 119, with 231 counters unchanged, 741 untraded and 13 suspended.

Trading was moderate with volume at 771.176 million shares worth RM737.572 million.   

Among actives, DVM Technology and DVM Technology-warr edged up half-a-sen each to eight sen and 3.5 sen respectively while The Media Shoppe was unchanged at 9.5 sen.

Top gainers, Petronas Dagangan surged 78 sen to RM28.38, British American Tobacco was 76 sen higher at RM63.04 and AEON Credit rose 50 sen to RM16.10.

Heavyweights, Maybank rose four sen to RM10.08, Sime Darby and Maxis were both eight sen up to RM9.49 and RM6.98 respectively while Axiata was flat at RM6.76.

CIMB gained 13 sen to RM7.53, Petronas Gas rose 46 sen to RM21.34, Public Bank was 28 sen higher at RM17.86 while SapuraKencana Petroleum and Tenaga Nasional added 10 sen each to RM3.70 and RM9.03 respectively. — Bernama