KUALA LUMPUR: Fund buying of Tenaga and Maybank helped drive the FBM KLCI higher for the second day on Wednesday. Investors' sentiment was boosted by the progress by the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP).

At midday, the FBM KLCI rose 4.02 points or 0.25% to 1,629.48. Turnover was 348.25 million shares valued at RM538.27mil. There were 262 gainers, 254 losers and 257 counters unchanged.

Affin Investment Research said the ETP results had again surpassed their targets in 2012

"For the second year running, the government has demonstrated positive progress on the ongoing implementation of the ETP projects, where the overall key performance indicators (KPI) under the 12 NKEAs, achieved an overall score of about 119% in 2012, only slightly lower than 123% in 2011," it said.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported Asian shares and the euro struggled on Wednesday after a bailout plan for Cyprus fell into disarray, but losses were limited on investors' hopes that a last minute deal was still within reach.

Among the key regional markets, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 0.87% to 22,234.37; Shanghai's Composite Index advanced 2.10% to 2,304.80. However, Taiwan's Taiex fell 0.36% to 7,810.04; South Korea's Kospi lost 0.4% to 1,970.63 and Singapore's Straits Times Index shed 0.27% to 3,260.36.

At Bursa Malaysia, Tenaga rose nine sen to RM7.09 and powered the KLCI 1.14 points higher.

Among the banks, Maybank rose five sen to RM9.12 and gave the KLCI a 0.77 of a point boost. HLFG gained 24 sen to RM14.48, CIMB three sen to RM7.14, AMMB four sen to RM6.40 and RHB Capital 11 sen to RM8.55.

As for consumer stocks. GAB recouped some of its recent losses to add 14 sen to RM18.54. However, Nestle and Carlsberg lost 20 sen each to RM60.50 and RM13.86 respectively.

Crude palm oil for third-month futures rose RM16 to RM2,431. United Plantations rose 10 sen to RM27.40 and BLD Plantations nine sen to RM8.40 while Sime Darby gained four sen to RM9.19.

However, IOI Corp fell three sen to RM4.67, PPB Group 10 sen to RM12,.30 and FGV three sen to RM4.51.

The ringgit was firmer against the US dollar to 3.1270 from the previous close of 3.1218.

US light crude oil rose 29 cents to US$92.45, Brent added 51 cents to US$107.96. Spot gold edged up five cents to US$1,612.93.

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