21/04/2014 (The Star) - The FBM KLCI shrugged off its early cautious start to climb more than 10 points on Monday, underpinned by fund buying of bank stocks including Public Bank, CIMB and Maybank.

At 5pm, the KLCI was up 10.24 points or 0.55% to 1,862.93. Turnover was 2.61 billion shares valued at RM2.61bil. There were 523 gainers, 326 losers and 336 counters unchanged.

The strength of the market was reflected by the bank stocks which were among the top gainers.

Public Bank, which reported a strong set of first quarter earnings of more than RM1bil, added 16 sen to RM20.20 and pushed the KLCI up 1.62 points.

Maybank added 14 sen to RM9.97 and nudged the KLCI up 2.16 points while CIMB rose 11 sen to RM7.50 added 2.07 points. AMMB was up nine sen to RM7.25, RHB Capital eight sen to RM8.50. HLFG advanced 12 sen to RM15.30.

Crude palm oil for third-month futures inched up RM1 to RM2,635 per tonne. United Plantations rose 50 sen to RM25.48, NSOP 17 sen to RM5.90 and PPB Group eight sen to RM16.28 but IOI Corp fell two sen to RM4.78.

Islamic insurer Takaful continued to attract local fund support, rising 32 sen to RM12.40.

Petronas Gas rose 24 sen to RM23.98 while Petronas Chemicals added five sen to RM6.88. Petronas Dagangan lost 10 sen to RM30.22.

PIE Industrial fell 17 sen to RM8.26 while local retailer Bonia lost 14 sen to RM5.10.  Aeon Credit and Aeon were down eight sen each to RM14.62 and RM15.

The ringgit slipped to 3.2501 against the US dollar from the previous close of 3.2405.

Among the key regional markets,

Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.03% to 14,512.38;

Shanghai's Composite Index fll 1.52% to 2,065.83;

Taiwan's Taiex fell 0.17% to 8,951.19;

South Korea's Kospi fell 0.25% to 1,999.22 and

Singapore's Straits Times Index rose 0.04% to 3,255.23.

US light crude oil fell 18 cents to US$104.12 and Brent 46 cents lower at US$109.07.

Spot gold fell US$6.64 to US$1,287.67.