KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 25 — Bursa Malaysia turned higher at mid-morning today, underpinned by buying interest in selected heavyweights, but small caps and penny stock trading remained lacklustre, dealers said.

At 11.02am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,683.27, up 1.21 points against yesterday’s close of 1,682.06.

It opened 2.26 points weaker at 1,679.80.

Losers outpaced gainers 328 to 216, while 329 counters were unchanged, 833 untraded and 17 others suspended.

Turnover stood at 617.23 million shares worth RM403.99 million.

Of the heavyweights, TNB was flat at RM14.74 and Maybank lost two sen to RM7.97.

The FBM Emas Index declined 3.94 points to 11,793.56, the FBMT100 Index eased 7.399 points to 11,501.66, but the FBM Emas Syariah Index was 8.171 points higher at 12,438.73.

The FBM Ace fell 15.85 points to 5,402.05 and the FBM 70 shed 65.68 points to 13,509.53.

Sector-wise, the Finance Index lost 7.14 points to 14,453.57 and the Plantation Index was 2.38 points lower at 7,838.38, while the Industrial Index improved 4.97 points to 3,148.67.

Public Bank and Petronas Chemicals improved two sen each to RM19.78 and RM6.70 respectively and IHH gained one sen to RM6.63.

Among actives, AirAsia X lost 1.5 sen to 40 sen, AirAsia fell 15 sen to RM2.98 and Reach Energy slipped half a sen to 68.5 sen.

TH Heavy Engineering added one sen to 18.5 sen, while APFT was flat at 5.5 sen. — Bernama