KUALA LUMPUR, April 4 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia opened higher today, extending last-minute gains yesterday on persistent buying activity, dealers said.

At 9.10am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 6.64 points better at 1,862.27 after opening 7.36 points higher at 1,862.99.

HwangDBS Vickers Research said the key FBM KLCI may struggle to extend its gains for the time-being after rising just before market closed in the past two days.

“On the chart, the benchmark FBM KLCI will probably back off slightly from the immediate resistance barrier of 1,860 ahead,” the research house said in a note today.

In terms of news flows, the research firm said the February external trade statistics are due for release around noon today.

“One media survey is projecting an annual growth rate of 11.3 per cent for exports and 14.1 per cent for imports, translating to a monthly trade surplus of RM7.7 billion,” it added.

Gainers almost doubled the losers at 158 to 82, while 179 counters were unchanged, 1,190 untraded and 15 others were suspended.

Turnover stood at 151.25 million shares worth RM114.98 million.

On the scoreboard, the Industrial Index slipped 27.88 points to 3,181.51, the Plantation Index fell 53.63 points to 8,897.94, but the Finance Index chalked up 208.21 points to 17,025.52.

The FBM Emas Index advanced 37.3 points to 12,893.7, the FBMT100 Index added 39.15 points to 12,543.14, the FBM 70 jumped 22.32 points to 14,075.68 and the FBM Ace improved 10.14 points to 6,808.72.

Among actives, Ingenuity Consolidated was flat at 8.5 sen, Menang Corp rose seven sen to RM1.03, while KNM Group and ETI Tech went up one sen each to 78.5 sen and 11.5 sen, respectively.

As for heavyweights, Maybank climbed five sen to RM9.73, Tenaga Nasional was two sen higher at RM11.32, CIMB gained seven sen to RM7.32 but Axiata eased one sen to RM6.70. — Bernama