KUALA LUMPUR, March 26 — Shares on Bursa Malaysia closed higher today, lifted by buying support for selected blue-chips, a dealer said.

At the close, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) finished at 1,839.14, up 1.97 points, after moving within a a tight range of between 1,834.8 and 1,839.96 throughout the day.

Affin Investment Bank Vice President/Head of Retail Research, Dr Nazri Khan, said the local market's gains were in tandem with the uptrend seen in most regional bourses on positive overnight performance on Wall Street.

"The growing optimism on the recovery of US economy after data showed its consumer confidence climbed to a six-year high, coupled with easing Ukraine-Russia tension, also contributed to the day's trading," he told Bernama today.

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index rose 34.86 points to 16,575.84 and the Plantation Index gained 6.22 points to 8,920.06.

The Industrial Index, however, eased 14.24 points to 3,189.34. 

The FBM Emas Index increased 18.63 points to 12,718.21, FBMT100 Index was up 15.32 points to 12,376.24, FBM 70 perked 25.38 points to 13,845.14 and the FBM Ace improved 31 points to 6,734.24.

Market breadth was positive with gainers outpacing losers 445 to 336, while 312 counters were unchanged, 529 untraded and 14 others suspended. 

Turnover rose to 2.08 billion shares worth RM1.97 billion from 2.04 billion shares worth RM2.01 billion yesterday.

Among actives, Green Packet gained 5.5 sen to 52 sen, Ingenuity shed one sen to 10 sen and Xidelang eased three sen to 27.5 sen.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank and TNB rose two sen each to RM9.66 and RM11.96, respectively.

CIMB fell three sen to RM7.12, Sime Darby eased two sen to RM9.25 and Axiata shed one sen to RM6.60.

Main market volume improved to 1.45 billion units worth RM1.8 billion from 1.40 billion units worth RM1.86 billion yesterday.

Turnover on the ACE market fell to 514.56 million shares valued at RM146.89 million from yesterday's 613.09 million shares valued at RM147.65 million.

Warrants surged to 113.57 million units worth RM25.04 million from 23.75 million units worth RM3.38 million previously.

Consumer products accounted for 214.03 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products 165.94 million, construction 50.74 million, trade and services 428.79 million, technology 298.02 million, infrastructure 19.57 million, SPAC 19.12 million, finance 70.13 million, hotels 361,900, properties 162.53 million, plantations 16.55 million, mining 50,000, REITs 6.89 million and closed/fund 37,000. — Bernama