KUALA LUMPUR: Buying returned in the morning session on April 22, with interest seen in heavyweight stocks like Tenaga and BCHB, pushing the 100-stock KL Composite Index above the 970 level, while volume was seen rising again.

At 12.30pm, the KLCI was up 7.03 points to 973.63. Turnover was 634.28 million shares valued at RM529.54 million. There were 348 gainers, 165 losers and 192 stocks unchanged.

Crude palm oil futures rose RM24 to RM2,459 while light crude oil added 19 cents to US$48.74.

Singapore’s Straits Times Index fell 1.5% to 1,859.22, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 0.1% to 15,266.65 while Shanghai’s Composite Index rose 0.28% to 2,543.03 and the Nikkei 225 added 0.21% to 8,729.91.

Tenaga and BCHB rose 15 sen each to RM7.25 and RM8.05. Other gainers were BAT, up 25 sen to RM44.75, Parkson 22 sen to RM4.60, Dutch Lady 20 sen to RM9.60 and Astro 12 sen to RM2.54.

TAHPS was the top gainer, up 35 sen to RM3.30 but with only 100 shares done.

YTL-e Solutions was the top gainer, adding 17.5 sen to 55.5 sen with 11.3 million shares done ahead of the signing of an agreement for WiMax coverage with Samsung. Interest in YTL-e also spillover over to related stocks.

Time dotcom rose 2.5 sen to 31 sen while Green packet added 4.5 sen to 92.5 sen, while RedTone jumped eight sen to 26.5 sen.

Call warrants of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.fell 2.5 sen to 97.5 sen with 41,000 units done.

Lebar Daun was the top decliner, falling 41 sen to RM1.11, Loh & Loh lost 16 sen to RM3.84, Baswell 14 sen to 20 sen while Sinora slipped 10 sen to 38 sen. Proton gave up part of the recent gains, declining 12 sen to RM3.