KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips advanced in the morning session on Wednesday, March 10, supported by gains in PLANTATION [ ]s and tech stocks, nudging the FBM KLCI to a fresh two-year high.

At 12.30pm, the 30-stock FBM KLCI was up 8.67 points or 0.65% to 1,326.51, recouping its losses of 6.28 points the previous day. Turnover was 520.18 million shares valued at RM765.42 million. There were 364 gainers, 234 losers and 278 stocks unchanged.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index added 0.15% to 21,239.64, Singapore's Straits Times Index added 0.77% to 2,861.33 but Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.14% to 10,552.62 and Shanghai's Composite Index fell 0.54% to 3,052.54.

Crude palm oil futures for third-month delivery rose RM11 to RM2,646 while light crude oil added six cents to US$81.55 and US spot gold advanced US$3.45 to US$1,125.30.

Among plantations, KL Kepong rose the most, up 38 sen to RM17.02, PPB added 32 sen to RM17.02, Batu Kawan 28 sen to RM10.56, Glenealy 18 sen to RM4.60. IOI Corp and Sime Darby added 12 sen each to RM5.58 and RM8.81, pushing up the index by more than 3.6 points.

CIMB added 10 sen to RM14.24 and Maybank eight sen to RM7.49 while GENTING BHD [ ] edged up five sen to RM6.75, MISC six sen to RM7.96 and Tenaga two sen to RM7.96.

Among companies involved in the chips-related industry, MPI added 30 sen to RM6.85, Eng 26 sen to RM2.64 and KESM 14 sen to RM2.11.

RedTone-WA, which was listed Wednesday, added 9.5 sen to 10.5 sen and it was the most active with 22.5 million units done. MRCB was unchanged at RM1.55, off the high of RM1.58.

Jewellery maker Yikon fell 16 se to 68.5 sen while NPC gave up 15 sen to RM1.95 and MAS shed 10 sen to Rm2 while DiGi dipped eight sen to RM22.42.