KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 24 — Bursa Malaysia continued to trend upwards at mid-afternoon, boosted by plantation and banking counters.

At 3.05 pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 22.77 points to 1,545.20 from today’s close of 1,522.43.  

The market bellwether opened 1.78 points higher at 1,524.21.

Market breadth remained positive with gainers surpassing decliners 707 to 317, while 391 counters were unchanged, 804 untraded and six others suspended.

Turnover stood at 3.08 billion shares worth RM1.85 billion.

Banking heavyweights Public Bank, Maybank and CIMB gained 12 sen to RM4.06, RM8.29 and RM4.80 respectively, while Hong Leong Bank rose 26 sen to RM18.66.

In the plantation sector, Sime Darby Plantation jumped 25 sen to RM4.16 and IOI Corp was 12 sen better at RM3.87.

Among the actives, VSolar and Avillion were flat at 1.5 sen and 16 sen respectively, D’nonce Technology dropped 1.5 sen to 59 sen, and MMAG shed one sen to 11.5 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index rose 151.50 points to 11,308.12, the FBMT 100 Index bagged 150.36 points to 11,015.49, the FBM Emas Shariah Index gained 125.02 points to 12,369.39, the FBM 70 was 156.47 points higher at 14,866.41, and the FBM ACE went up 110.15 points to 7,289.27.  

Sector-wise, the Plantation Index climbed 188.85 points to 6,599.23, the Financial Services Index soared 297.71 points to 15,215.56, and the Industrial Products and Services Index edged up 1.18 points to 190.55.  — Bernama