Bursa Malaysia closes at intra-day high, bucks regional trend

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia ended yesterday at the day’s high of 1,678.24 driven by a broad rally on Asian stock markets during earlier trading sessions and better market sentiment due to gains recorded on Wall Street as well as optimism over Brexit.

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) closed 6.96 points higher compared with 1,671.28 yesterday.

In contrast, Singapore’s Straits Times Index was down 0.52 per cent to 3,195.59, Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.99 per cent to 21,290.24 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined 0.39 per cent to 28,807.44.

The local benchmark index opened 0.15 of-a-point weaker at 1,671.13 and moved between 1,669.92 and 1,678.24 throughout the day.

On the scoreboard, market breadth was slightly negative with losers outnumbering gainers 459 to 42, while 389 counters remained unchanged, 635 were untraded and 30 others were suspended.

Volume rose to four billion units, valued at RM2.39 billion, from 3.02 billion units worth RM2.10 billion on Tuesday.

Phillip Capital Management senior vice president (investment) Datuk Dr Nazri Khan Adam Khan said investors were optimistic on the US-China trade negotiation and after the European Commission agreed to changes to the Brexit deal.

“Trend- wise, the FBM KLCI is trapped in a sideways market following a lacklustre performance by the corporate index over the last four weeks and fundamental-wise, this was caused by the lack of market catalyst and also weak yearto-date external news flow,” he said.

However, Wall Street strength should spillover to local sentiment with S&P 500 climbing by 0.3 per cent at yesterday’s close in the wake of last week’s five-session losing streak, which was recorded as its longest since November.

“On the domestic front, the level of confidence among the Japanese investors and financial institutions is imminent. This can be seen in the oversubscribed Samurai bond issuance of 1.6 times above the initial target, which is 324.7 billion against the 200 billion yen offered,” he explained.

Among heavyweights, Maybank, Tenaga and IHH rose six sen each to RM9.55, RM12.70 and RM5.91, respectively, PBBank and CIMB both added eight sen to RM24.48 and RM5.45, PChem gained four sen to RM9.30 while HLBank advanced 10 sen to RM20.76.

Of actives, Sapnrg increased 1.5 sen to 34 sen and its warrant was half-a-sen higher at 10.5 sen, Perdana went up 15 sen to 45 sen, and KNM improved one sen to 11.5 sen.

The FBM Emas Index rose 34.93 points to 11,722.84, the FBMT 100 expanded 33.98 points to 11,570.50, the FBM Emas Shariah Index earned 15.69 points to 11,707.74 and the FBM Ace Index advanced 26.31 points to 4,751.15.

However, the FBM 70 fell 15.20 points to 14,102.55.

Sector- wise, the Financial Services index leapt 106.18 points higher at 17,488.53, the Industrial Products and Services Index was 0.57 of-a-point better at 170.27 and the Plantation Index was 0.69 ofa-point higher at 7,248.27.

Main Market volume soared to 3.4 billion shares, valued at RM2.26 billion, from Tuesday’s 2.24 billion shares worth RM1.92 billion.

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