Financial counters push Bursa Malaysia to end higher

KUALA LUMPUR: Financial heavyweights provided a fillip to Bursa Malaysia yesterday, pushing the key index 0.67 per cent higher to finish at its intraday high, although the broader market remained so .

At 5 pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) advanced 10.72 points to 1,596.85 compared with 1,586.13 at Tuesday’s close.

The index opened 0.81 of-apoint be er at 1,586.94 and moved between 1,586.87 and 1,596.85 throughout the day.

Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd economist Adam Mohamed Rahim said banking counters such as CIMB and Hong Leong had lately recorded commendable gains and as the banking sector has a heavy weightage in the FBM KLCI, it would offset the decliners which have less weightage in the index.

On oil and gas counters, he said a technical indicator is signaling that oil is overbought and due for a correction, and there are concerns that elevated prices would prompt producers to pump more crude which will eventually push oil prices down.

At the time of writing, Brent crude oil price fell 0.11 per cent to US$60.02 per barrel, while WTI crude dipped 0.22 per cent to US$58.23 per barrel.

Market breadth was negative with losers leading gainers 627 to 504, while 468 counters were unchanged, 550 untraded and 15 others suspended.

Total volume shrank to 4.84 billion units worth RM3.61 billion from 7.18 billion units worth RM4.71 billion recorded at yesterday’s close.

Financial heavyweights, Maybank and PBBank put on eight sen each to RM8.03 and RM4.22, respectively, while CIMB added 13 sen to RM4.19 and HLBank improved 66 sen to RM18.22. These counters contributed 10.04 points to the index.

Meanwhile, other heavyweights, PChem was flat at RM7.56, Tenaga advanced five sen to RM9.75, Topglov reduced five sen to RM6.15 but IHH went up one sen to RM5.13.

Of the actives, AAX was half-asen higher at seven sen, DNEX fell two sen to 34 sen, EAH was flat at 3.5 sen and IRIS eased 1.5 sen to 37 sen.

Among top gainers, AEONCR increased 36 sen to RM11.36, Hartalega added 32 sen at RM12.78, and F&N improved 30 sen to RM30.72.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index gained 58.85 points to 11,618.54, the FBMT 100 Index went up 60.41 points to 11,345.22 and the FBM 70 climbed 19.87 points to 15,161.15.

However, the FBM Emas Shariah Index was 1.81 points easier at 13,052.96 and FBM ACE shed 67.04 points to 10,747.95.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index soared 269.06 points to 15,161.15, the Plantation Index improved 36.47 points to 7,184.19, while the Industrial Products and Services Index perked up 0.43 of-a-point to 180.33.