Bursa Malaysia finishes on firm note

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia finished on a firm note yesterday boosted by buying interests in heavyweights, dealers said.

A dealer said the higher close was in line with the strong performance in most regional markets.

“The improved buying sentiment in the local market was also due to post-Chinese New Year rally and recovery in global crude oil market,” he said.

At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) finished at 1,649.96 points, up 6.22 points from last Friday’s close of 1,643.74.

The index, which hovered between 1,648.46 and 1,661.34 points throughout the day, opened 8.91 points higher at 1,652.65 at 9am.

Market breadth was positive with gainers trouncing losers by 497 to 297 with 339 counters unchanged, 615 counters untraded and 15 others suspended.

Total volume rose to 1.54 billion shares worth RM1.54 billion from last Friday’s 1.33 billion shares worth RM1.57 billion.

On regional bourses, Japan’s Nikkei 225 surged 7.16 per cent to 16,022.58, Hong Kong’ s Hang S eng went up 3.27 per cent to 18,918.14 and Singapore’s Straits Times gained 2.70 per cent to 2,608.57.

Among heavyweights, Petronas Gas rose 40 sen to RM22.64, Maxis gained nine sen to RM6.15 while CIMB, Petronas Chemicals and Digi increased by six sen each to RM4.26, RM6.96 and RM4.91 respectively.

Of the actives, Berjaya Corp edged up half-a-sen to 43 sen, Hubline and Tiger Synergy were flat at one sen and 5.5 sen respectively and APFT declined one sen to RM21.5 sen.

The FBM Emas Index rose by 38.39 points to 11,438.72, FBM Emas Shariah Index surged 41.53 points to 12,209.65 and the FBM Ace gained 2.88 points to 5,824.12.

The FBM 70 rose by 18.28 points to 12,649.94 and the FBMT100 Index increased by 35.85 points to 11,149.54.

Sector-wise, the Plantation Index increased by 49.46 points to 7,772.27, Industrial Index added 13.44 points to 3,255.41 and the Finance Index was up 38.73 points to 13,875.43.

Main Market volume rose to 1.12 billion units valued at RM1.45 billion from 936.74 million units valued at RM1.49 billion last Friday.

Turnover on the ACE Market fell to 223.72 million shares worth RM44.43 million from 239.05 million shares worth RM47.49 million last week.

Warrants increased to 196.79 million units valued at RM38.44 million from last Friday’s 157.44 million units valued at RM34.67 million.

Consumer products accounted for 69.33 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (192.01 million), construction (115.31 million), trade and services (482.71 million), technology (21.28 million), infrastructure (7.51 million), SPAC (45.95 million), finance (32.3 million), hotels (1.23 million), properties (119.18 million), plantations (18.67 million), mining (1,000), REITs (14.13 million) and closed/fund (33,000).