KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 24): The FBM KLCI ended the morning session 4.14 points or 0.23% higher as the current reporting season peaks.

At 12.30 pm, the KLCI settled at 1,813.79 points for the midday break with 1.26 billion shares valued at RM 904.99 million traded.

A senior remisier with a local investment bank told theedgemarkets.com that today’s trading sentiment would be largely influenced by quarterly financial result announcements.

“The KLCI is up by a couple of points today and is expected to remain in the positive range as investors are anticipating announcements from some of the bigger companies.

"Yesterday’s positive result announcements by companies like Nestle (M) Bhd, Pharmaniaga Bhd and UMW Oil & Gas Bhd have given trading a bit of a boost and KLCI closed higher,” he said.

He said trading on the local bourse for the rest of the week should remain “range bound but still on the uptrend”.

For the morning session today, the top losers were Panasonic Manufacturing Malaysia Bhd, Carlsberg Brewery Malaysia Bhd, Hong Leong Capital Bhd, Syarikat Takaful (M) Bhd, and Perduren (M) Bhd.

The top gainers were Dutch Lady Milk Industries Bhd, British American Tobacco (M) Bhd, MISC Bhd, Amtek Holdings Bhd and Pos Malaysia Bhd.

The most actively traded stock in the morning session was Asia Bioenergy Tech Bhd. The stock fell 1 sen or 7.14% to 13 sen after over 141.5 million shares were traded, valued at RM19.44 million.

Other actively traded stocks are R&A Telecommunications Group Bhd, Wintoni Group Bhd, Diversified Gateway Solutions Bhd and Kanger International Bhd.

Across Asia, Reuters reported that the region is cautious as US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen may be announcing the likely lift-off date for US policy tightening.