KUALA LUMPUR, May 20 ― Shares on Bursa Malaysia remained higher mid-afternoon on continuous buying support for selected heavyweights, amid bargain hunting activities and positive regional market sentiment, dealers said.
At 3.01pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,811.2, up 1.48 points.
A dealer said this upward momentum was also a spillover of Wall Street's encouraging overnight close.
Elsewhere in the region, Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index advanced 170.18 points to 20,196.56, Korea's Seoul Composite rose 18.69 points to 2,139.54, and Indonesia's Jakarta Composite gained 35.78 points to 5,305.15.
On the local bourse, losers outpaced gainers 389 to 271, while 347 counters were unchanged, 797 untraded and 19 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 1.24 billion shares worth RM1.05 billion.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index rose 3.61 points to 12,502.4 and the FBMT100 Index gained 4.25 points to 12,176.33.
However, the FBM Emas Shariah Index trimmed 1.83 points to 12,993.32 and the FBM 70 eased 16.92 points to 13,579.17 and the FBM Ace decreased 11.24 points to 7,199.
The Finance Index perked 20.44 points to 16,148.51 and Industrial Index added 2.16 points to 3,272.1 and the Plantation Index rose 5.36 points to 7,530.79.
Among heavyweights, Maybank added two sen to RM9.36, Public Bank garnered four sen to RM19.22, Axiata eased two sen to RM6.73 while TNB and Sime Darby were both flat at RM13.98 and RM8.95, respectively.
Among actives, RGB earned half-a-sen to 17 sen, Frontken was flat at 32 sen, Kanger was half-a-sen lower at 20.5 sen, Malakoff was nine sen lower at RM1.67 and Nexgram shed one sen to 12 sen. ― Bernama
