Bursa Malaysia ends mixed, CI marginally higher

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia ended mixed yesterday, with the benchmark index settling in positive territory, after fluctuating between gains and losses throughout the day, as late buying provided support for selected heavyweights led by Tenaga, CIMB and IOI Corp.

At the close, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI ( FBM KLCI) increased 0.48 of-a-point to end at 1,676.61 compared with Monday’s close of 1,676.13.

The index, which opened 0.31 of-a-point lower at 1,675.82, move between a low of 1,672.41 and a high of 1,677.76 throughout the session.

Losers led gainers 413 to 364, while 394 counters were unchanged, 746 untraded and 42 others suspended.

Turnover fell slightly to 1.78 billion units valued at RM1.75 billion from 1.81 billion units valued at RM1.68 billion recorded yesterday.

Inter-Pacific Securities head of research Pong Teng Siew said the market struggled to surpass the present resistance level of 1,675, which was broken last week.

“Many sectors were up today such as plantation, construction, telecommunications and technology but financial, healthcare, energy, and consumer products were down.

“Finance sector is experiencing a weak loan growth, despite the fact that housing loans is doing well,” he told Bernama yesterday.

In addition, he said the market also expected to experience midyear window-dressing activities soon.

“Fund managers may dress up their books by pushing (stocks) to a good close.

“However, it depends very much on how the global market performs over the next few days. Some may attempt to close their books on a better note,” he added.

Among the heavyweights, Tenaga was 20 sen higher at RM14.00, while both CIMB and IOI Corp added six sen each to RM5.34 and RM4.26 respectively.

However, Maybank dropped three sen to RM8.93 while Public was flat at RM23.02.

As for active stocks, Bumi Armada and Sumatec both remained unchanged at 21 sen and one sen respectively while Focus Dynamics rose 1.5 sen to 16 sen.

The FBM Emas Index climbed 14.28 points to 11,807.22, the FBMT 100 Index increased 15.09 points to 11,662.20 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index rose 37.53 points to 12,163.57.

The FBM 70 jumped 66.59 points to 14,635.43 and the FBM Ace went up 26.51 points to 4,392.01.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index slid 54.03 points to 16,706.93, the Industrial Products and Services Index edged down 0.41 of-a-point to 161.03 while the Plantation Index was 24.12 points better at 6,976.26.

Main Market volume declined to 1.03 billion shares worth RM1.55 billion from 1.21 billion shares worth RM1.53 billion on Monday.