KUALA LUMPUR, May 20 — The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) remained higher at lunch break on continued buying support for selected finance, industrial, trade/services and consumer heavy weight counters, dealers said.
CIMB, Petronas Chemicals and MISC rose six sen each to RM4.41 and RM6.42 and RM7.46, respectively, while UMW soared 21 sen to RM5.69.
The benchmark index stood at 1,634.85, up 1.09 points after moving between 1,632.91 and 1,636.95 during the morning session.
It opened 1.07 points higher at 1,634.83.
Losers outpaced gainers 367 to 291, while 596 counters were unchanged, 471 untraded and 15 others were suspended.
Turnover stood at 960.17 million shares worth RM678 million.
A dealer said some bargain hunting also boosted the local bourse.
“This trend was similar among other Asian equities today,” the dealer said, adding that the US stock market and the US dollar were trading higher, supported by positive inflation data would also signalled a possible hike in interest rates.
On the local bourse, Maybank fell one sen to RM8.47, TNB was flat at RM13.98 but Axiata was three sen lower at RM5.45.
For actives, AirAsia X and XOX added half-a-sen each to 41 sen and 14 sen, respectively, while Compugates slipped half-a-sen to 4.5 sen.
The FBM Emas Index rose 8.57 points to 11,438.93, the FBMT100 Index was up 7.82 points at 11,129.24 and the FBM70 gained 10.50 points to 12,920.93.
The FBM Emas Shariah Index gained 2.17 points to 11,946.06 and the FBM Ace edged up 1.31 points to 5,674.65.
The Finance Index increased 25.84 points to 14,293.03, the Plantation Index declined 22.35 points to 7,493.75 but the Industrial Index was 4.07 points better at 3,069.66. — Bernama
