KUALA LUMPUR, March 23 — Shares on Bursa Malaysia turned rangebound at mid afternoon-today on bluechips profit-taking consolidation, dealers said.

At 3pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 0.41 of a point lower at 1,803.24.

A dealer said blue chips fell into profit-taking consolidation as market players discounted the recent strong performance of external markets, especially Wall Street, which should encourage more reverse portfolio flows from emerging markets back into the world’s largest economy.

On the scoreboard, the FBMT100 Index increased 3.311 points to 12,082.44, the FBM Emas Syariah Index improved 15.63 points to 12,999.35, and the FBM Emas Index was up 2.91 points to 12,387.15.

The FBM 70 rose 26.97 points to 13,320.01 and the FBM Ace expanded 12.53 points to 6,927.7.

Sector-wise, the Industrial Index firmed 10.23 points to 3,331.65, while the Finance Index gave up 19.83 points to 15,948.62, and the Plantation Index was 11.19 points lower at 7,790.86.   

Losers edged gainers by 363 to 349 with 311 counters unchanged, 748 untraded and 11 others suspended.

Turnover stood at 1.31 billion shares worth RM849.16 million.

Among active stocks, Privasia added 3.5 sen to 33.5 sen, Eti Tech and Globaltec gained half a sen each to 11 sen and 7.5 sen respectively, and Talam Transform and Jadi Imaging earned one sen each to nine sen and 10 sen respectively.           

Of the heavyweights, Maybank eased two sen to RM9.13, TNB dell 26 sen to RM14.34, Public Bank lost 10 sen to RM18.50 and Axiata slipped one sen to RM7.03.

Sime Darby added five sen to RM9.31. — Bernama