KL shares firmer on buying of heavyweights

MALAYSIAN shares opened firmer in early trade today, spurred by buying interest in heavyweights following Wall Street's bullish performance last week.Dealers said the US stock market's recent gains signaled the return of upbeat sentiment in its economy despite negative economic data, such as the higher jobless claims last week.

MIMB Investment Bank said traders should look at bargain hunting now as the US indices are ready to embark on a new upleg.After 25 minutes of trading, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite Index was 8.04 points higher at 1,171.83, after opening at 1,163.79.

The Finance Index went up 68.19 points to 9,484.48, Plantation Index rose 34.85 points to 5,861.53 and the Industrial Index increased 12.23 points to 2,585.74. The FBMEmas Index advanced 50.32 points to 7,912.77 and the FBM Top 100 added 50.27 points to 7,688.26 but the FBM ACE Index fell 1.6 points to 4,204.24. Advancers outnumbered decliners by 231 to 37 while 83 counters were unchanged and 886 untraded.

Turnover stood at 70.24 million shares valued at RM67.864 million. On the active list, Jetson-WA went up 19.5 sen to 76 sen, Msports slipped 2.5 sen to 66.5 sen and KNM rose 1.5 sen to 77.Among heavyweights, Sime Darby and IOI Corp gained five sen each to RM8.28 and RM5.13 respectively. Maybank rose seven sen to RM6.50 and Bumiputra-Commerce advanced 10 sen to RM10.40.Tenaga Nasional was flat at RM8.00 and Axiata went up two sen to RM3.10. -- Bernama