KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 23 — Bursa Malaysia was in positive territory at mid-afternoon today, helped by persistent buying in blue-chips.

At 3pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 10.21 points higher at 1,672.1.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index rose 50.29 points to 11,647.42, FBMT100 Index increased by 51.09 points to 11,318.47 and the FBM Emas Syariah improved 50.77 points to 12,579.3.

However, the FBM Ace eased 13.68 points to 6,900.85 and the FBM 70 fell 7.73 points to 12,909.15.

On a sectoral basis, Finance Index chalked up 64.47 points to 14,142.74, Industrial Index advanced 3.91 points to 3,297.62 and Plantation Index gained 30.62 points to 7,529.14.

Market breadth was negative with decliners outpaced gainers by 419 to 389, while 360 counters were unchanged, 667 untraded and 11 others suspended.

Turnover amounted at 1.9 billion shares worth RM1.11 billion.

Of the actives, Genetec gained five sen to 27.5 sen, Globaltec edged up half-a-sen to seven sen and Instacom shed half-a-sen to 31 sen.  

Among heavyweights, Maybank rose eight sen to RM8.40, TNB rose 30 sen to RM13.42, Public Bank improved 10 sen to RM18.20, while Axiata declined one sen to RM6.15 and IHH Healthcare eased seven sen to RM6.49. — Bernama