KUALA LUMPUR: Mild fund buying of oversold counters enabled the FBM KLCI to close higher on Monday but insufficient to cross the key 1,850 level as investors were still recovering from the steep fall last Friday.
At the close, the FBM KLCI was up 9.45 points or 0.51% to 1,849.32 - enabling the 30-stock index to recoup one-third of last Friday's losses of 27 points.
Turnover was 3.16 billion shares valued at RM2.11bil. Advancing counters beat decliners two to one with 607 gainers to 292 losers and 262 counters unchanged.
Reuters reported European shares rose in early trade on Monday, bouncing back from a sharp two-week slide and tracking a rally on Wall Street, after investors deemed Moscow was not about to send troops into Ukraine - a move which would intensify sanctions.
At Bursa Malaysia, MAS was among the most active stock with 244.84 million shares done when it resume trading. It rose two sen to 26 sen, just one sen lower than the 27 sen a share proposed by major shareholder Khazanah Nasional in its move to take the ailing carrier private in order to restructure it.
Among the banks and finance stocks, HLFG was the top gainer, adding 40 sen to RM17.28.
Plantation and plantation-related stocks were mixed. Palm oil mill builder CBIP rose 17 sen to RM4.83 while PPB Group added 16 sen to RM14.68 but United Plantations fell the most, down 40 sen to RM28.10.
