KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 28 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia ended mixed today on lack of buying support ahead of the weekend.

The benchmark FBM KLCI rose four points to close at 1,835.66, after moving between 1,825.82 and 1,836.14 throughout the day.  

Market breadth was negative with losers leading gainers by 582 to 268, with 305 counters unchanged, 475 untraded and 30 others suspended.

Volume rose to 2.45 billion shares worth RM2.68 billion, from 2.38 billion shares worth RM2.09 billion yesterday.

Mercury Securities head of research Edmund Tham said the market was traded in a narrow range today with investors mostly sidelined due to lack of market direction.

“However, gains in finance counters, helped by favourable financial year 2013 results, helped to limit the day's losses.

“We can also see there was bargain hunting by institutional investors in selected blue-chips and some profit taking activities by retail investors in second- and third-liner stocks,” he told Bernama.

Tham said sentiment remained fragile with no clear direction, either domestically or externally, on where the market was heading to.

On the scoreboard, the Finance Index earned 115.19 points to 16,606.12 while the Industrial Index decreased 9.54 points to 3,129.13 and the Plantation Index fell 50.55 points to 8,759.13.

The FBM Emas Index added 20.89 points to 12,669.52, the FBMT100 Index gained 30.78 points to 12,355.76, the FBM 70 earned 49.57 points to 13,833.71 but the FBM Ace fell 145.15 points to 6,443.87.

Among actives, Asia Bioenergy fell two sen to 11.5 sen, PDZ Holdings rose half-a-sen to 12.5 sen and Astral Supreme was flat at 22 sen.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank rose eight sen to RM9.78, Tenaga Nasional added four sen to RM12 and CIMB improved six sen to RM7.16.

Main Market volume rose to 1.76 billion units worth RM2.52 billion, from 1.62 billion units worth RM1.94 billion transacted yesterday.

Turnover on the ACE market fell to 645.11 million shares valued at RM151.53 million, from 711.94 million shares valued at RM145.36 million recorded yesterday.

Warrants dwindled to 31.31 million units worth RM3.51 million, from yesterday's 37.16 million units worth RM3.42 million.

Consumer products accounted for 75.51 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products 376.87 million, construction 93.67 million, trade and services 776.2 million, technology 37.66 million, infrastructure 34.27million, SPAC 93.29 million, finance 56.02 million, hotels 724,400, properties 155.24 million, plantations 28.77 million, mining 117,000, REITs 32.37 million and closed/fund 59,000. — Bernama