KUALA LUMPUR, March 21 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia ended the morning session higher today on the back of stronger regional stocks, dealers said.
At lunch break, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) closed at 1,819.75, up 1.58 points, after hovering between 1,816.85 and 1,820.17 throughout the session.
A dealer said Asian stock markets rebounded from recent losses, lifted by bargain hunting and solid economic data from the United States.
“Asian stock markets track the higher US bourse despite the European markets ending slightly lower,” he said.
Major US equity indices rebounded by between 0.3 per cent and 0.7 per cent in the overnight trading.
On the scoreboard, the Finance Index rose 15.93 points to 16,426.57, while the Industrial Index lost 3.22 points to 3,159.35 and the Plantation Index eased to 10.101 points to 8,834.8.
The FBM Emas Index was up 10.26 points to 12,603.33, the FBMT100 Index improved 8.46 points to 12,268.99, the FBM Ace expanded 37.2 points to 6,623.43 and the FBM 70 added 1.16 points to 13,815.71.
Market breadth was positive, with gainers outnumbering losers 327 to 291, while 318 counters were unchanged, 686 untraded and 28 others suspended.
Turnover totalled 715.8 million shares worth RM864.86 million.
Among actives, Xidelang, Flonic Hi-Tec and Sumatec earned half-a-sen to 35.5 sen, nine sen and 30 sen, respectively.
MQ Technology and Ingenuity were flat at 12 sen and 10.5 sen, respectively.
As for heavyweights, Maybank and Sime Darby were flat at RM9.53 and RM9.20, respectively, while CIMB gained two sen to RM7.12.
TNB lost two sen to RM11.94 and Axiata shed three sen to RM6.49. — Bernama
