KL SHARE PRICES LOWER AT MID-MORNING

KUALA LUMPUR, May 20 -- Stock prices on Bursa Malaysia were lower at mid-morning as sentiment was dampened slightly by former Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's announcement Monday that he was quitting Umno, dealers said.

However, selective buying in selected bluechips kept a lid on the market's decline, dealers added.
As at 11.10 am, the benchmark Composite Index eased 0.10 of a point to 1,300.57.

The Industrial Index added 8.57 points to 2,749.84, the Finance Index slipped 18.65 points to 10,028.3 and Plantation Index gained 58.64 points to 8,083.12.

Of the FTSE-BM Index series, FBMEmas declined 22.57 points to 8,719.35, FBM30 slipped 25.07 points to 8,371.13, FBMMDQ dropped 59.91 points to 4,865.09 and FBM2BRD decreased 29.21 points to 5,846.65.

Losers beat gainers 344 to 142, 178 counters unchanged, 753 counters untraded and 29 other counters suspended.

Turnvoer stood at 216.278 million shares worth RM495.283 million.

A dealer said cement-related counters such as Lafarge Malayan Cement and Gopeng gained on expectations that there may be some price adjustments for the cement industry following liberalisation of the local steel industry.

Lafarge added 10 sen to RM4.78 and Gopeng rose 11.5 sen to 98 sen.

Of bluechips, Sime Darby firmed five to RM9.75, Maybank was flat at RM7.90, Telekom Malaysia eased six sen to RM3.44, Tenaga Nasional lost 10 sen to RM6.85 and Genting slipped 10 sen to RM6.10.

Leading the active list, Resorts slipped four sen to RM3.26, IOI Corp added five sen to RM7.55, Ho Wah Genting eased half a sen to 34.5sen and Lion Corporation declined 1.5 sen to 83.5 sen



20/05/2008 12:02 PM

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