For April, the 30-stock index was up 9.46 points or 0.58% from a month ago.
KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips had to struggle to close higher on the final trading day of the first quarter on Friday as selling pressure picked up in the last 90 minutes.
Public Bank and Digi came under selling pressure but some fund buying of Tenaga Nasional, CIMB and Top Glove helped the FBM KLCI to close in the positive zone, but off the intra-day high of 1,649.
At 5pm, the KLCI was up 2.30 points or 0.14% to 1,643.63. This was in line with the futures market where the index ended March up one point to 1,641.50.
Turnover on Bursa was 2.47 billion shares valued at RM2.24bil. The broader market was more positive with 478 gainers, 337 losers and 427 counters unchanged.
For the first quarter, Bursa Malaysia was the only stock market in the red among the key regional markets. It is down 2.78% year-to-date.
Consumer stocks led the gainers, with BAT up 66 sen to RM36.14, Hieneken 56 sen to RM24, Dutch Lady
50 sen to RM64.50, Nestle 40 sen to RM146.80 and Carlsberg 20 sen to RM26.74.
Tenaga rose 14 sen to RM12.66 and added 1.38 points to the KLCI. Sime Darby was flat at RM2.23 while Genting Bhd lost sicx sen to RM6.64 and GentingM four sen to RM3.20. IHH was down three sen to RM5.77.
CIMB advanced four sen to RM5.15, HLFG 18 sen to RM19.18, AmBank three sen to RM4.56, Hong Leong Bank two sen to RM20.30, Maybank and RHB Bank one sen each to RM9.27 and RM5.70 but Public Bank slid 12 sen to RM23.16 and erased 0.8 of a point.
Top Glove rose 13 sen to RM4.62 as investors were upbeat about its prospects while Hartalega gained two sen to RM4.63.
As for telcos, Axiata added three sen to RM4.15, Maxis was flat at RM5.36 while Digi shed five sen to RM4.55.
US light crude oil rose 52 cents to US$59.82 and Brent gained 38 sen to US$68.20.
Among the oil and gas stocks, Petronas Dagangan added 10 sen to RM25, Petronas Chemical one sen to RM9.16 but Petronas Gas slid six sen to RM17.62.
As for plantations, PPB Group advanced 24 sen to RM18.32, KL Kepong added 14 sen to RM24.80 IOI Corp and Sime Plantation were flat at RM4.46 and RM5.01.
Crude palm oil for third month delivery fell RM17 to RM2,103 per tonne due to higher palm oil stocks.
GETS Global surged 20.5 sen to 33.5 sen in active trade following the appointment of Mirzan Mahathir as its director.
The ringgit weakened 0.06% against the US dollar to 4.0820 and slipped 0.13% versus the Singapore unit to 3.0129.
However, Brexit worries saw the ringgit gaining 0.86% against the pound sterling to 5.3177 and advanced 0.08% to the euro at 4.5855.
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