KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 12 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia continued to trend higher mid-afternoon with interest centred on oil and gas, especially Petronas-linked and finance counters, dealers said.
At 3pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 6.11 points higher at 1,785.43.
Petronas Dagangan topped the list of gainers on FBM KLCI-listed companies, chalking-up 68 sen to RM28.68, followed by CIMB which rose 14 sen to RM8.00, Maybank gained 10 sen to RM10.50 and Petronas Gas earned eight sen to RM20.80.
A dealer said lower liners, especially small caps and special purpose acquisition companies in the oil and gas sector should stay active to attract keen rotational speculative retail interest.
On the scoreboard, the Finance Index surged 110.71 points to 17,010.88, the Industrial Index added 3.31 points to 3,013.73 but the Plantation Index slipped 0.22 of-a-point to 8,311.38.
The FBM Emas Index rose 42.87 points to 12,451.34, the FBM Ace Index chalked-up 78.49 points to 5,297.41 and the FBM70 Index increased 48.38 points to 14,332.72.
Advancers edged decliners 395 to 313 while 268 counters were unchanged, 597 untraded and 11 others were suspended.
Total volume stood at 1.04 billion shares worth RM962.1 million.
Among active stocks, both Sona Petroleum and Instacom added 1.5 sen each to 46.5 sen and 40 sen, respectively, Daya Materials and Astral Supreme earned one sen each to 34 sen and 23 sen, respectively, while Eti Tech climbed half-a-sen to 8.5 sen.
Heavyweights, Axiata added six sen to RM6.91 and Petronas Chemicals rose three sen to RM6.61.
Axiata and Public Bank slipped two sen each to RM9.48 and RM17.26, respectively, while Tenaga erased four sen to RM7.27. — Bernama
