Bursa Malaysia ends mixed

Bursa Malaysia ended mixed yesterday with buying support in bluechips and selected heavyweights helped boost trading, dealers said.

The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 3,38 points to close at 1,777.91 after moving between 1,771.9 and 1,778.48 throughout the session.

The benchmark index opened 0.99 of a point better at 1,775.52 against 1,774.53 last Friday.

On the broader market, losers trounced gainers by 515 to 363, with 356 counters unchanged, 600 untraded and 22 others suspended.

Volume rose to 1.95 billion units worth RM1.68 billion from 1.42 billion units worth RM1.47 billion on Friday.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank rose five sen to RM9.70, Public Bank soared 18 sen to RM20.66, Tenaga and Petronas Chemicals gained two sen each to RM14.18 and RM7.03 respectively, while CIMB perked six sen to RM6.68. Sime Darby, however, slipped one sen to RM9.39. A dealer said the market sentiment was mixed, influencing demand to move in a ‘yo-yo’ pattern.

He said the bourse started the day higher as demand was drove by continuous buying from last week, spurred by solid local export data, coupled with the firmer Wall Street on Friday as well as strong economic data from the US.

“Nevertheless, momentum turned mixed as concern shifted to the easing oil prices and rising production from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries,” he told Bernama.

Regionally, Japan’s Nikkei 225 was 0.52 per cent up at 20,055.89, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.46 per cent to 27,690.36, but Singapore’s Straits Times eased 0.18 per cent to 3,320.67.

A dealer said the selling in the small-capitalised counters and weaker ringgit against the US dollar also partly contributed to the day’s performance.

Among actives, Frontken, which recently was on an uptrend, retreated eight sen to 33 sen, Dagang Nexchange eased four sen to 52 sen, while Compugates inched up half-a-sen to 3.5 sen.

The FBM Emas Index increased 9.67 points to 12,629.54, FBMT 100 Index chalked up 13.89 points to 12,282.09 and FBM Emas Shariah Index was 9.72 points higher at 12,753.73.

However, the FBM 70 fell 18.64 points to 14,938.11 and the FBM Ace gave up 50.29 points for 6,526.12.

Sector-wise, the Finance Index rose 16.71 points to 16,839.57, Industrial Index went up 12.64 points at 3,277.97 and the Plantation Index advanced 21.9 points to 7,872.68.

The Main Market turnover surged to 1.21 billion shares valued at RM1.48 billion from 894.50 million shares valued at RM1.32 billion last Friday.

Volume on the ACE Market improved to 569.08 million shares worth RM167.05 million from 316.88 million shares worth RM106.53 million last week.

Warrants decreased to 145.9 million units valued at RM21.39 billion from 188.71 million units valued at RM39.4 billion previously.

Consumer products accounted for 51.06 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (250.86 million), construction (68.55 million), trade and services (608.13 million), technology (62.72 million), infrastructure (7.11 million), SPAC (968,600), finance (59.04 million), hotels (6.01 million), properties (82.46 million), plantations (9.39 million), mining (nil), REITs (4.56 million) and closed/fund (28,200).