KUALA LUMPUR, May 14 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia continued the uptrend at the end of the morning session today, boosted by buying in bluechips and plantation counters.

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) finished the session at 1,874.91 points, up 8.83 points, after hovering between 1,873.35 points and 1,877.69 points during the trading session.

Among plantations, KLK vaulted 40 sen to RM24.80, IOI advanced 11 sen to RM5.16 and Sime Darby gained three sen to RM9.49.

A dealer told Bernama that growing concerns over bad weather which could lead to better revenue and higher commodity prices, had caused plantation stocks to become attractive.

On the scoreboard, the Plantation Index surged 76.1 points to 9,235.26, the Finance Index rose 39.87 points to 17,049.1 points, and the Industrial Index increased 14.9 points to 3,193.75 points.

The FBM Emas Index improved 50.77 points to 12,957.5 points, the FBM 70 was 20.81 points higher at 14,046.34 points, and the FBMT100 Index advanced 50.35 points to 12,603.52 points. But the FBM Ace shed 1.32 points to 6,604.52 points.

Market breadth was positive with gainers trouncing losers 424 to 256, while 304 counters were unchanged, 629 untraded and 20 others suspended.

Turnover stood at 1.062 billion shares worth RM1.104 billion.

Of the heavyweights, both Maybank and TNB rose four sen each to RM9.89 and RM12.02 respectively, CIMB improved one sen to RM7.30, and Axiata rose six sen to RM6.93. Public Bank was however flat at RM19.96.

Among actives, Harvest Court inched up half-a-sen to 33 sen, Benalec increased eight sen to RM1.06, while 1Utopia shed half-a-sen to six sen. — Bernama