KUALA LUMPUR, March 23 ― Bursa Malaysia continued to trade higher and ended the morning trading session in positive territory, aided by buying activity in financial services counters and small cap stocks.

At 12.30pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) earned 13.02 points higher at 1,598.83 from 1,585.81 at yesterday’s close.

The key index opened 2.97 points better at 1,588.78 and moved between 1,588.78 and 1,600.36 throughout the session.

On the broader market, gainers trounced losers 568 to 325, while 409 counters were unchanged, 1,001 untraded and 14 others suspended.

Total turnover stood at 2.09 billion worth RM1.26 billion.

OANDA senior market analyst for Asia Pacific Jeffrey Halley said the perpetual armies of bullish investors dominated New York overnight and key fast-money markets like Japan today, as they wishfully priced there was no more bad news to come from Eastern Europe or the US Federal Reserve.

"That sparked an ‘efficient market pricing’ rally that saw New York recorded some impressive gains, with value being the winner, over growth and Asian equities tracked Wall Street to trade higher,” he said.

Among the heavyweights, Maybank added nine sen at RM8.92, PBBank was two sen better at RM4.64, IHH rose five sen to RM6.56, while PChem declined two sen to RM9.56.

Of the actives, CSH added half-a-sen to 16.5 sen, SapNRG was flat at 3.5 sen, Pasukhas, AT, XOX and DNex were all unchanged at two sen/ and Fitters erased half-a-sen to 16.5 sen.

On the index board, FBM 70 gained 162.30 points to 13,699.39, FBM Emas Index was 100.72 points better at 11,403.00, FBM Emas Shariah Index accumulated 113.34 points to 12,027.50, FBMT 100 Index perked up 99.9 points to 11,098.24, and FBM ACE went up 106.94 points to 5,542.35.

Sector-wise, the Industrial Products and Services Index edged up 1.97 points to 203.78, the Financial Services Index rose 149.35 points to 16,735.32, while the Plantation Index declined 15.28 points to 8,038.05. ― Bernama