KUALA LUMPUR, June 23 ― Share prices on Bursa Malaysia opened higher, extending yesterday's buying momentum, as traders took advantage of theopportunity to buy on the market's weakness, dealers said.

At 9.05am, the index was up 0.62 of a point to 1,733.20 after opening 1.80 points higher at 1,734.56.

Alliance DBS Research said the benchmark index overcame the 1,727-1,733 resistance zone to reach an intra-day high of 1,735.90 on continuous buying support yesterday.

It said the crossover of the 1,727 – 1,733 resistance zone was viewed as encouraging as the market had earlier failed to surpass the same hurdle.

“The benchmark index is staging an overdue technical rebound with the next resistance selling zone pegged between 1,745 and 1,750.

“The analysis of the overall market action today revealed that buying power was stronger than selling pressure. As such, the FBMKLCI would likely trade above the 1,735.90 level,” the research house added.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index rose 9.82 points to 11,988.87, the FBM Emas Syariah Index improved 23.67 points to 12,481.93, the FBM 70 added 27.76 points to 13,110.94 and the FBM Ace advanced 43.28 points to 6,631.44.

The FBMT100 Index decreased 2.69 points to 11,664.93.               

On a sectoral basis, the Plantation Index depreciated 2.18 points to 7,305.57, the Finance Index was down 26.48 points to 15,631.50 while the Industrial Index rose 9.31 points to 3,178.59.

Gainers led losers 178 to 77 with 152 counters unchanged, 1,828 untraded and 13 others were suspended.

Turnover stood at 114.65 million shares worth RM41.13 million.                

Among heavyweights, Petronas Chemical added nine sen to RM6.18, MISC gained five sen to RM8.28, Digi improved two sen to RM5.53 and UMW Holdings rose 12 sen to RM10.40.

For actively-traded stocks, both PUC Founder and Privasia Technology edged up 1.5 sen each to 14.5 and 32.5 sen, respectively, Globaltec gained one sen to 6.5 sen while Hubline was flat at 1.5 sen. ― Bernama