KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 28 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia ended the morning session mixed today, with continued buying interest in finance counters, dealers said.

At lunch break, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) gained 2.09 points to 1,833.75, after hovering between 1,825.82 and 1,836.14 throughout the morning session.

Finance counters, Maybank and CIMB, gained four sen each to RM9.74 and RM7.14 respectively, while Hong Leong Financial rose 20 sen to RM15.54.

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index rose 51.8 points to 16,542.73, while the Plantation Index fell 34.46 points to 8,775.22 and the Industrial Index lost 3.1 points to 3,135.57.

The FBM Emas Index improved 10.64 points to 12,659.26, the FBMT100 Index jumped 16.09 points to 12,341.07, and the FBM 70 increased 25.85 points to 13,809.99, while the FBM Ace slid 103.77 points to 6,485.25.

Losers outnumbered gainers 483 to 229, with 301 counters unchanged, 617 untraded and 30 others suspended.

Turnover totalled 1.27 billion shares worth RM1.05 billion.

Among actives, PDZ Holdings rose 1.5 sen to 13.5 sen, Asia Bioenergy fell 1.5 sen to 12 sen and Infortech Alliance slipped four sen to 46.5 sen.

Of the heavyweights, Tenaga Nasional rose two sen to RM11.98, Axiata was flat at RM6.55, while Sime Darby declined one sen to RM9.17. — Bernama