KUALA LUMPUR, April 24 — Bursa Malaysia continued its uptrend at mid-afternoon today spurred on by bargain hunting in most index-linked counters, dealers said.

At 3.11pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) firmed up 8.00 points to 1,635.44, from yesterdays's close of 1,627.44.

The benchmark index opened 6.26 points higher at 1,633.70.

On the broader market, gainers outpaced losers 506 to 318, while 414 counters were unchanged, 678 untraded and 31 others suspended.

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Turnover stood at 2.73 billion shares worth RM1.59 billion.

Among heavyweights, MISC’s shares rose 2.58 per cent or 17 sen to RM6.76 backed by news that it had the capability to bid for up to US$2 billion-US$3 billion (RM8.25 billion-RM12.38 billion) worth of new jobs for 2019 and hoped to post good financial results for 2019-2020.

Of the other heavyweights, Maybank was flat at RM9.16, Public Bank and Tenaga rose four sen each at RM22.64 and RM12.32 respectively, and Petronas Chemicals was up 10 sen to RM9.05.

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For the top gainers, Tasek added 41 sen to RM6.36, Takaful and Lafarge each rose 23 sen to RM5.52 and RM3.03.

Of the actives, Bumi Armada edged up 4.5 sen to 24.5 sen, Priceworth International and Barakah added half-a-sen each to 7.5 sen and 10.5 sen respectively.

The FBM Emas Index increased 57.25 points to 11,642.79, the FBMT 100 Index was 55.00 points higher at 11,453.96 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index bagged 72.21 points to 11,851.73.

The FBM 70 expanded 66.42 points to 14,690.61 and the FBM Ace was higher by 2.78 points to 4,755.04.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index rose 65.35 points to 16,883.11, the Plantation increased 41.54 points to 7,233.68 and the Industrial Products & Services Index was 1.25 points better at 171.40. — Bernama