KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 21 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia ended the morning session higher today as favourable external sentiment fueled risk appetite, but profit-taking capped further upside, dealers said.

At lunch break, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI)inched up 0.54 of a point to 1,828.35, after hovering between 1,826.44 and 1,831.32 throughout the session.

A dealer said the local market rebounded and erased yesterday’s losses after overnight gains on Wall Street, as manufacturing activity in the world’s largest economy surged to a near four-year high.

“Moreover, small caps and penny stocks continued to attract retail participation backed by robust trading momentum,” he added.

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index fell 4.82 points to 16,566.29 and the Plantation Index lost 2.66 points to 8,722.58, while the Industrial Index firmed 4.75 points to 3,124.15.

The FBM Emas Index improved 7.95 points to 12,657.1, the FBM 70 rose 12.08 points to 13,825.96, the FBMT100 Index expanded 5.211 points to 12,315.98, and the FBM Ace surged 109.55 points to 6,683.21.

Gainers outnumbered losers 366 to 323, with 333 counters unchanged, 595 untraded and 17 others suspended.

Turnover totalled 1.69 billion shares worth RM1.06 billion.

Among actives, Minetech slipped half a sen to 21 sen, while Iris advanced 3.5 sen to 58.5 sen, Sona Petroleum gained two sen to 59 sen and PDZ earned half a sen to 12.5 sen.

R&A Telecommunication was flat at 5.5 sen.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank and TNB were flat at RM9.75 and RM11.98 respectively, while Axiata and Sime Darby added one sen each to RM6.54 and RM9.02 respectively.

CIMB lost two sen to RM7.09. — Bernama