KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 3 — The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) ended the morning session off best as profit taking set in to trim earlier gains.

The underlying sentiment still remained bullish.

At 12.30pm, the index ended the morning session 0.54 per cent or 9.91 points higher at 1,828.06 but not before touching an intra-day high of 1,840.12.

However, losers led gainers 367 to 258, with 305 counters unchanged, 636 untraded and 20 others were suspended.

Volume transacted, in the morning session, amounted to 569.37 million shares valued at RM810.08 million.

The gains in the FBM KLCI was reflective of the positive reaction from market players following the government’s continuous subsidy rationalisation through yesterday’s electricity tariff review, amid improvement in external economies.

RHB Research Institute Head of Research Alexander Chia said the government had “bitten the bullet” by implementing a series of subsidy rationalisation programmes, beating the expectation of international rating agencies.

“This signals the government’s strong will to put its financials on a firmer footing,” he told Bernama today.

Chia added that the overall market was looking better as the United States, China and European economies were showing strong signs of recovery.

Tenaga Nasional, one of the tariff review beneficiary, saw its shares actively traded and was the main contributor to the FBM KLCI rise, with 21.81 million shares transacted at the end of the morning session.

Its share price was RM1.29 or 13.04 per cent higher at RM11.18.

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index improved 9.68 points to 16,711.09, the Plantation Index gained 1.89 points to 8,861.44 while the Industrial Index was 21.93 points lower at 3,152.15.

The FBM Emas Index surged 57 points to 12,654.38, the FBMT100 Index advanced 59.84 points to 12,389.56, the FBM 70 soared 38.35 points to 14,212 while the FBM Ace lost 23.07 points to 5,540.19.

Among actives, XOX lost half-a-sen to 14 sen and DSC Solution eased 7.5 sen to 15.5 sen.

As for heavyweights, CIMB gained eight sen to RM7.61, Maybank shed two sen to RM9.80 and Sime Darby gave up six sen to RM9.59. — Bernama