KUALA LUMPUR, June 22 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia were higher in the early session today on continued buying interest, dealers said.
At 9.05 am, the index was up by 1.57 points to 1,723.34 after opening marginally lower by 0.15 of a point at 1,721.62.
Alliance DBS Research said the positive settlement above the 1,718 level in the last two trading days of last week was encouraging, with sellers seen as not being interested in pushing the benchmark index below that.
It said the market is once again seen as making a comeback to consolidate its position at between the 1,714 and 1,745 range.
"But the benchmark index must first overcome the small resistance selling zone between the 1,727 and 1,733 levels.
"The analysis of overall market action on last Friday revealed that buying power was stronger than selling pressure and as such, the FBM KLCI is likely to trade above the 1,726.98 level today," the research house added.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index rose 9.46 points to 11,884.83, the FBMT100 Index increased 9.84 points to 11,606.62, the FBM Emas Syariah Index improved 18.92 points to 12,395.68, the FBM 70 added 8.28 points to 13,023.92 and the FBM Ace advanced 63.37 points to 6,363.40.
On a sectoral basis, the Plantation Index depreciated 3.42 points to 7,299.86, the Finance Index was down 7.65 points to 15,585.30 and the Industrial Index dropped 10.43 points to 3,150.46.
Gainers led losers 119 to 76 with 129 counters unchanged, 1,498 untraded and 13 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 42.72 million shares worth RM21.74 million.
Among heavyweights, Astro added one sen to RM2.93, Westport gained two sen to RM4.40, while Hong Leong shed eight sen to RM15.20 and SapuraKencana eased two sen to RM2.38.
For actively-traded stocks, Frontken edged up one sen to 28 sen, Pentamaster gained 2.5 sen to 76 sen, while Tiger Synergy eased half-a-sen to 10.5 sen and AirAsia was down two sen to RM1.59. ― Bernama
