KUALA LUMPUR, April 26 ― Bursa Malaysia finished the morning session higher on buying support for selected blue-chips led by finance, trade and services counters.
At 12.30pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) ended the morning session 3.04 points higher at 1,768.84 from Tuesday's close of 1,765.80.
Earlier, the index opened 1.98 points better at 1,767.78, and moved within a 5.06 points range between 1,769.68 and 1,764.62 throughout the session.
Gainers outpaced losers 444 to 353 with 396 counters unchanged, 578 counters untraded and 53 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 1.99 billion shares worth RM1.34 billion.
Of the heavyweights, Maybank advanced two sen to RM9.39, TNB gained six sen to RM13.86, Public Bank and CIMB were flat at RM19.96 and RM5.75 respectively, while Petronas Chemicals eased 15 sen to RM7.39.
Among the actives, Key Alliance added one sen to 8.5 sen, DNEX rose 3.5 sen to 59 sen, AirAsia X declined 1.5 sen to 43.5 sen, while Hubline eased half-a-sen to 7.5 sen.
The FBM Emas Index was 20.60 points higher at 12,598.81, the FBMT100 Index rose 19.00 points to 12,229.39 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index increased 11.44 points to 12,945.00.
The FBM 70 added 15.60 points to 14,911.84, and the FBM Ace was up 48.94 points to 6,160.75.
The Finance Index jumped 36.55 points to 16,166.03, the Industrial Index improved 9.36 points to 3,232.64, while the Plantation Index added 6.08 points to 8,079.31.
A dealer said the firmer stance of Bursa Malaysia was in tandem with most of its regional peers following the positive overnight performance of Wall Street.
Elsewhere in the region, Asian stocks were widely higher with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average gaining 0.94 per cent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index advanced 0.58 per cent and China's Shanghai Composite Index edged up 0.36 per cent. ― Bernama
