KUALA LUMPUR: Share prices on Bursa Malaysia opened firmer in early trading today in line with positive US equities overnight,
dealers said.

At 9.45am, the underlying FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was 1.28 points better at 1,640.71, compared with yesterday's close of 1,639.43.

Key US equity indices ended up between 0.2 per cent and 0.7 per cent last night as investors felt upbeat amid talks that Germany would support the European Central Bank's bond purchase plan.

"Sentiment was also lifted by better corporate results," HwangDBS Vickers Research said in a research note today.

The research house said this could set the stage for the local bourse to climb a bit more after posting a modest rise of 4.4 points yesterday.

"The benchmark FBM KLCI may pull away further from 1,635 to head towards the next resistance barrier of 1,650," it said.

The Finance Index dwindled 6.56 points to 14,706.2, the Plantation Index rose 6.42 points to 8,707.23 and the Industrial Index slipped 1.3 points to 2,862.16.

The FBM Emas Index was 6.61 points higher at 11,231.86 but the FBM Mid 70 Index lost 4.35 points to 12,406.78, the FBMT100 Index added 6.22 points to 11,052.48 and FBM Ace Index shed 17.87 points to 4,481.54.

Gainers led losers 148 to 133 while 237 counters were unchanged and 1,093 remained untraded.

A total of 219.291 million lots worth RM162.048 million were transacted.

Among active stocks, ES Ceramic lost 1.5 sen to 12.5 sen, IHH Healthcare gained two sen to RM3.21 and SKP Resources gained 1.5 sen to 37 sen.

Heavyweights, Maybank rose two sen to RM8.88, CIMB shed two sen to RM7.86 and Sime Darby lost one sen to RM9.80. -- BERNAMA