KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 7 — Shares on Bursa Malaysia extended earlier gains at mid-morning, with the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) trading above the 1,800-point level, lifted by persistent buying interest.

At 11.02 am, the benchmark index FBM KLCI stood at 1,804.72, rising 6.82 points after hovering between 1,797.84 and 1,805.58.

DiGi.Com, which performed well in its FY13, was the biggest contributor to the rise of composite index with 2.11 points. The telco’s share soared 15 sen to RM5.00 with 10.556 million lots transacted.

A dealer said favourable US jobless data for last week spurred positive sentiment in global bourses, giving hope that the government will issue a positive January employment report on Friday   .

“The news sparked confidence among investors on the recovery of the economic slowdown, especially in the US,” the dealer added.         

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index soared 66.91 points to 16,536.34, the Industrial Index added 1.41 points to 3,063.7 but the Plantation Index slipped 2.3 points to 8,381.42.

The FBM Emas Index rose 48.11 points to 12,456.81, the FBMT100 Index moved up 44.95 points to 12,162.63, the FBM Ace jumped 100.2 points to 6,148.38, and the FBM 70 increased 46.6 points to 13,676.43.

Positive market breadth saw gainers outpacing losers by 371 to 183, while 286 counters were unchanged, 753 untraded and 17 others suspended.

Turnover totalled 708.06 million shares worth RM531.48 million.

Among actives, both Winsun and Ingenuity inched up half-a-sen each to 8.5 sen and 9.5 sen respectively, but Sumatec shed half-a-sen to 31.5 sen.

For heavyweights, Maybank rose seven sen to RM9.77, TNB chalked up 16 sen to RM11.60, CIMB gained five sen to RM6.97 and Sime Darby added one sen to RM8.96.

Axiata Group, however, was flat at RM6.50. — Bernama