KUALA LUMPUR, June 19 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia ended the morning session in the positive territory on consistent buying of selected heavyweight stocks.

At lunch break, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was up 6.14 points at 1,724.26 after moving between 1,715.83 and 1,725.24 throughout the morning session.

A dealer said, the rise was in tandem with other Asian markets as the source of uncertainty was removed when the US Federal Reserve signaled that it would hike interest rates at a slower pace than expected.

At lunch break, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was up 6.14 points at 1,724.26 after moving between 1,715.83 and 1,725.24 throughout the morning session.

Market breadth was positive with gainers leading losers 418 to 235, while 274 counters were unchanged, 887 untraded and 13 others suspended.

Turnover stood at 885.19 million shares worth RM809.69 million.

Of the leading movers in the composite index component stocks, Maybank was 10 sen higher at RM9.34, Tenaga added 14 sen to RM12.74, MISC gained 17 sen to RM8.06, YTL  Corporation advanced three sen to RM1.54 and Petronas Chemical improved four sen to RM6.04.

Among actives, AirAsia fell one sen to RM1.66, Frontken gained two sen to 27 sen, K-One added 2.5 sen to 28.5 sen, IFCA MSC improved nine sen to RM1.22 while VSolar was flat at 14 sen.

At mid-day, the top gainers were Oriental Food Industries, Hong Leong Financial and Top Glove while the top losers were Pharmaniaga, United Plantation and Panasonic Manufacturing.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index was 39.15 points higher at 11,926.56, the FBMT100 Index added 36.39 points to 11,618.05, the FBM Emas Syariah was up 20.48 points at 12,372.54, the FBM Ace jumped 88.65 points to 6,279.23 and the FBM 70 rose 21.84 points to 13,056.63.

On a sectoral basis, the Finance Index expanded 95.40 points to 15,651.70, the Industrial Index added 7.77 points for 3,164.63 but the Plantation Index declined 20.64 points to 7,234.19. — Bernama