Mixed amid follow-through buying

Share prices ended mixed today with gains seen on mining and plantation stocks due to strong commodities prices amid increasing demand, dealers said.

Follow-through buying on key heavyweights also helped push the FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (FBM KLCI) to 1,265.74, up 0.337 per cent or by 4.25 points, recording another fresh one year high.

It had opened 1.61 points higher at 1,264.61 this morning, and moved between 1,264.48 and 1,270.08 throughout the trading session.

Among the active plantation stocks, KLK and IOI Corp increased 20 sen and 8 sen each to RM15.00 and had gone up 1.38 per cent to US$79.61 (US$1 = RM3.36) per barrel on the back of a weaker greenback.

Locally, RHB Capital's purchase of an 80 per cent stake in Indonesia's Bank Mestika Dharma for RM1.16 billion boosted market sentiment.

The FBM Emas Index rose 27.13 points to 8,513.49, the FBM Top 100 increased 29.62 points to 8,299.57, the FBM 70 gained 36.9 points to 8,404.99 but the FBM ACE Index declined 44.4 points to 4,389.87.

The Finance Index added 81.08 points to 10,740.68, the Plantation Index climbed 70.68 points to 6,215.22 and the Industrial Index went down 0.46 points to 2,682.33.

Losers outpaced gainers by 419 to 329 while 243 were unchanged and 304 untraded.

Total turnover, meanwhile, decreased to 1.236 billion shares worth RM1.545 billion from 1.334 billion shares valued at RM1.267 billion previously

The most active stock was Metronic Global which closed 3 sen lower at 12.5 sen.

Other active stocks were KNM which was flat at 86 sen, Iris which added 1 sen to 17 sen and Asiaep which lost 1/2 sen to 8.5 sen.

Among the heavyweights, Sime Darby went up 2 sen to RM8.79, Maybank gained 5 sen to RM6.98, CIMB rose 10 sen to RM12.62 and Tenaga Nasional lost 1 sen to RM8.51.

The ACE Market volume decreased to 140.274 million shares valued at RM22.82 million from 177.340 million shares worth RM31.685 million shares previously.

The FBM KLCI futures ended higher in line with the firmer cash market and due to rising market optimism, dealers said.

The spot month October 2009 contract rose 6.0 points to 1,271.0, November 2009 and December 2009 increased 5.0 points each to 1,270.5 and 1,271 respectively, while March 2010 added 4.5 points to 1,272.5. Turnover rose to 4,525 lots from 4,086 lots while open interests fell to 16,498 from 16,944 contracts previously. - Bernama