Bursa Malaysia stays higher at mid-morning

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia remained higher at mid-morning amid bargain-hunting in selected heavyweights led by banking stocks, taking cue from Wall Street's performance on Friday last week.

At 11.04 am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) increased 18.38 points to 1,530.53 from Friday's close of 1,512.15. The benchmark index opened 5.43 points higher at 1,517.58.

The market breadth was positive with gainers thumping decliners 663 to 215, while 332 stocks were unchanged, 1,214 untraded, and seven suspended.

Turnover stood at 1.43 billion shares worth RM839.11 million.

Among the heavyweights, Maybank rose 10 sen to RM10.42, Public Bank gained six sen to RM4.54, Tenaga Nasional added 14 sen to RM13.54, CIMB put on 23 sen to RM7.30 and IHH Healthcare picked up four sen to RM7.14.

As for the active stocks, Sapura Energy was flat at five sen, Saliran edged up one sen to 23.5 sen and NexG improved half-a-sen to 26 sen, while Nationgate and MYEG gained three sen each to RM1.39 and 96 sen, respectively.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index climbed 148.22 points to 11,448.36, the FBMT 100 Index advanced 143.56 points to 11,213.39, the FBM Emas Shariah Index expanded 124.18 points to 11,113.76, the FBM 70 Index grew 245.33 points to 16,383.80, and the FBM ACE Index notched up 32.73 points to 4,710.41.

By sector, the Financial Services Index garnered 280.04 points to 18,802.06, the Industrial Products and Services Index strengthened 1.93 points to 155.66, the Energy Index gained 16.35 points to 735.08, and the Plantation Index put on 40.17 points to 7,409.92.

-- BERNAMA