KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 30 — Bursa Malaysia remained higher at mid-morning, in line with positive regional market sentiment, and on continued buying in industrial products and services as well as financial services counters, dealers said.

At 11am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 8.91 points to 1,599.07 from Friday’s close of 1,590.16.  

The market bellwether opened 3.03 points better at 1,593.19.

Market breadth remained positive, with gainers leading decliners 425 to 379, while 469 counters were unchanged, 973 untraded and 50 others suspended.

Turnover stood at 1.73 billion shares worth RM933.39 million.

In a note today, Rakuten Trade said regional markets were expected to perform better today following a rather mixed performance last week.

“Locally, the FBM KLCI continued with its impressive performance as buying from foreign funds persisted. For last week alone, the index jumped by almost 5.0 per cent and we expect it to continue with the uptrend.

“Though a correction is anticipated, we believe the intermittent profit taking activities to soften the impact.

“For today, we expect the benchmark index to inch closer towards the 1,600 level and hover within the 1,590-1,600 range today,” it said.

Heavyweights Maybank improved 7.0 sen to RM8.44, Petronas Chemicals jumped 14 sen to RM8.34, Tenaga Nasional added 6.0 sen to RM10.44, IHH Healthcare advanced 9.0 sen to RM6.44, but Public Bank declined 5.0 sen to RM4.13.

Among the actives, KNM Group and Sapura Energy earned half-a-sen each to 26.5 sen and 13 sen, respectively, Hiap Teck went up 2.5 sen to 57 sen, while BCM Alliance was flat at 6.5 sen.

Meanwhile, in a filing with Bursa Malaysia today, AEON, IJM Corp, IJM Plantations and Kuala Lumpur Kepong announced that their share trading on Bursa Malaysia had been halted between 9-10 am.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index strengthened 55.45 points to 11,615.98, the FBMT 100 Index was 55.52 points firmer at 11,328.90, and the FBM Emas Shariah Index was 78.38 points higher at 12,757.74.

The FBM 70 increased 43.72 points to 15,014.06, while the FBM ACE advanced 32.46 points to 7,247.33.

Sector-wise, the Plantation Index increased 7.74 points to 6,781.42, while the Financial Services Index gained 28.71 points to 15,515.61 and the Industrial Products and Services Index added 2.04 points to 198.60. — Bernama