Bursa Malaysia ends broadly higher

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia snapped two days of losses to close broadly higher on renewed buying interest in heavyweights led by Public Bank, Axiata, CIMB Group, dealers said.

At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,777.13, up 21.99 points, against Tuesday’s close of 1,755.14.

The index moved between 1,751.03 and 1,778.47 throughout the session.

Public Bank chalked up 98 sen to RM25.00, Axiata rose 23 sen to RM4.65 and CIMB Group bagged 13 sen to RM6.21. Gains in these stocks contributed 12.709 points to the rise in the composite index.

Buying momentum on Bursa Malaysia was also stronger, reflected by the higher turnover of 3.50 billion units, valued at RM3.02 billion, from Tuesday’s close of 2.73 billion units valued at RM2.69 billion

Gainers hammered losers 716 to 267 while 373 counters were unchanged, 543 untraded and 20 others were suspended.

Dealers said the local market was expected to be on a upward momentum in the next few weeks, backed by rising global oil prices on supply concerns.

However rising prices are being capped by talks by major oil producers to increase crude output.

Among heavyweights, Maybank eased six sen to RM9.59 while TNB was flat at RM14.36 and Petronas Chemicals rose five sen to RM8.35.

Of the actively traded stocks, Sapura Energy and Cuscapi improved seven sen each to 65 sen and 24.5 sen, respectively, MyEG increased 6.5 sen to eight sen and TH Heavy Engineering perked one sen to 6.5 sen.

The FBM Emas Index soared 161.90 points to 12,445.00, the FBMT 100 Index jumped 154.68 points to 12,244.52 and the FBM Ace added 148.73 points to 5,291.57. The FBM Emas Shariah Index bagged 121.01 points to 12,421.73 and the FBM 70 was 198.19 points higher at 14,835.68.

Sector-wise, the Finance Index rose 259.25 points to 17,806.60, the Industrial Index increased 33.52 points to 3,230.72 while the Plantation Index fell 4.26 points to 7,732.11.

Main Market volume increased to 2.52 billion shares, worth RM2.79 billion, from Tuesday’s close of 1.65 billion shares worth RM2.41 billion.

Warrants’ volume rose to 629.01 million units, valued at RM135.96 million, from 568.19 million shares worth RM132.06 million.

Volume on the ACE Market decreased to 354.30 million shares, valued at RM92.78 million from Tuesday’s 506.30 million shares worth RM146.64 million.

Consumer products accounted for 54.29 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (324.41 million), construction (277.29 million), trade and services (1.26 billion), technology (251.95 million), infrastructure (29.41 million), SPAC (4.12 million), finance (98.89 million), hotels (13.29 million), properties (149.65 million), plantations (37.42 million), mining (42,400), REITs (10.68 million), and closed/fund (10,000).

For further information on stocks and prices, please visit www.bursamalaysia.com.