KUALA LUMPUR, July 16 – Share prices on Bursa Malaysia were slightly higher mid-day on persistent buying interest in selected heavyweights, dealers said.
At 12.30pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 0.41 of a point higher at 1,787.08 at lunch break, after opening 1.13 points lower at 1,785.54.
Market breadth was positive, with 358 gainers and 277 losers, while 283 counters were unchanged, 658 untraded and 30 others were suspended.
Turnover stood at 731.437 million shares worth RM892.869 million.
HwangDBS Vickers Research said on the back of selective buying of index-linked counters, the key FBM KLCI would probably attempt to break away from the immediate resistance threshold of 1,785.
“From a technical perspective, the benchmark index may be inching its way towards the psychological mark of 1,800 next.
“This comes as Wall Street made further gains last night. Leading US bellwethers were marginally up by between 0.1 per cent and 0.2 per cent at the closing bell amid better corporate profit reports,” it said in a note today.
On the scoreboard, the Industrial Index improved 5.43 points to 3,022.81, the Finance Index added 35.689 points to 17,111.91 but the Plantation Index fell 28.47 points to 8,468.45.
The FBM Emas Index rose 12.02 points to 12,453.34, the FBMT 100 gained 7.271 points to 12,191.54, the FBM 70 Index increased 26.931 points to 14,314.78 and the FBM ACE Index gained 22.02 points to 4,826.47.
Among actives, TH Heavy Engineering rose 4.5 sen to 90 sen, TH Heavy Engineering-WA added 2.5 sen to 51 sen but Eastland Equity fell six sen to 75.5 sen.
As for the heavyweights, Maybank lost two sen to RM10.48, CIMB earned five sen to RM8.40 and Axiata rose one sen to RM6.80. – Bernama
