KL shares steady despite cautious sentiment

Share prices on Bursa Malaysia ended the morning session steadier at midday despite cautious sentiment today.

At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI rose 0.69 of a point to 1,598.20 after hovering between 1,597.75 and 1,600.67.

Inter-Pacific Securities Head of Research Pong Teng Siew said South East Asian equity markets had modest gain so far as renewed external worries capped movement.

"On the local stock market, interest continues to revolve around small selection of stocks that have been doing well for sometime," he told Bernama.

He said the global market, including the Malaysian bourse, took a cautious stand over renewed worries on the rising bond yields in Spain which added jittery over euro zone debt crisis, overshadowing the better-than expected United States retail data.

The global market awaits the results of Thursday's Spanish bond auction.

The Finance Index dipped 10.58 points to 14,277.3 and the Plantation Index eased 3.33 points to 8,815.87 but the Industrial Index climbed 1.43 points to 2,870.86. The FBM Emas Index gained 6.0 points to 10,965.63, the FBM Mid 70 Index increased 16.71 points to 12,075.46 and the FBM Ace Index advanced 49.26 points to 4,551.87.

Gainers led losers 283 to 278, while 322 counters were unchanged, 644 untraded and 36 others suspended. Turnover stood at 1.195 billion shares worth RM669.227 million.

Among active counters, Ariantec added 5.5 sen to 17 sen while Metronic and Focus Dynamics climbed 2.5 sen each to 18 sen and 19 sen respectively.

Maybank eased five sen to RM8.80 while Sime Darby and Petronas Chemicals both added two sen to RM9.90 and RM6.73 respectively. CIMB inched up one sen to RM7.62. -- BERNAMA