KUALA LUMPUR, July 31 (Bernama) -- Bursa Malaysia ended higher on Friday as investors continued to accumulate blue-chip stocks in line with stronger performances across most regional markets. At 5 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 4.50 points to 1,724.90 from yesterday’s close of 1,720.40. The benchmark index opened 0.83 of a point higher at 1,721.23, and moved between 1,715.67 and 1,730.12 throughout the day. The broader market was positive with gainers outpacing losers 707 to 402, while 547 counters were unchanged, 1,085 untraded and 56 suspended. Turnover expanded to 3.03 billion units valued at RM3.56 billion from 2.49 billion units valued at RM2.25 billion on Thursday.
According to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) blog post, U.S. semiconductor companies, including several SIA members, were among the top corporate recipients of U.S. patents in 2015 based on an analysis of new data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. SIA industry statistics and economic policy director Falan Yinug said five of the top 15 US corporate patent recipients are major semiconductor producers. The top five names on the list were iBM Corporation, Qualcomm Inc., Google,Inc., Intel Corporation and Microsoft Technology Licencing LLC. He said that this is partly because U.S. semiconductor companies invest a higher share of sales into research and development than any other U.S. industry. On average, the U.S. semiconductor industry invests about one-fifth of total sales into R&D. “While this is a huge amount, it does not guarantee company success in the industry. Rather, it is simply the business model that ...