KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 18 — Shares on Bursa Malaysia opened higher in the early session today, with the benchmark index FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) surpassing the 1,800 level on follow-through buying of heavyweights, dealers said.

Forty-seven minutes after opening, the FBM KLCI rose 4.04 points to 1,801.46, after hitting a high of 1,805 recorded at 9.25am.

HwangDBS Vickers Research said Wall Street overnight saw leading equity bellwethers ending between flat and up 0.7 per cent as investors expect the United States Federal Reserve to maintain its monetary stimulus measures.

It said the FBM KLCI touched a high of 1,802.57 yesterday before losing steam subsequently to close at 1,797.42.

"Following a rise of 28.3-point or 1.6 per cent over the past five days, the benchmark index is set to consolidate its recent gains ahead by treading between its immediate support and resistance levels of 1,785 and 1,800, respectively," it said in a research note.

Back to the scoreboard, the Finance Index improved 38.818 points to 16,779.03, the Plantation Index rose 6.13 points to 8,455.18 and the Industrial Index was 18.39 points higher at 3,095.64.

The FBM Emas Index increased 26.86 points to 12,528.46, the FBMT100 Index advanced 27.34 points to 12,259.67, the FBM Ace added 22.11 points to 5,517.91 and the FBM 70 surged 31.04 points to 14,271.

Gainers led losers 193 to 169, with 218 counters unchanged, 1,042 untraded and 15 others were suspended.

Turnover was mild with 282.606 million shares worth RM356.146 million traded.

Westports, which made its debut on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia today, was among the actives.

After opening at RM2.70, a premium of 20 sen from its offer price of RM2.50, it retreated to RM2.58 after 47 minutes of trading.

About 85.682 million shares were traded.

Other actives, Malaysia Airlines and Destini-WA were both unchanged at 36 sen and 13 sen, respectively.

As for heavyweights, Maybank and Petronas Chemicals were both unchanged at RM9.93 and RM7.12, respectively, while Axiata eased one sen to RM6.90 and CIMB added three sen to RM7.52. — Bernama