KL shares close higher, CI up 0.37 per cent

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia ended higher yesterday on stronger buying support due to positive market sentiment underpinned by improving crude oil prices.

At 5 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI ( FBM KLCI) closed at its intra- day high of 1,690.33 points, up 6.18 points or 0.37 per cent, from Friday’s close of 1,684.15, after touching a low of 1,680.92 earlier.

The key index opened 2.15 points lower at 1,682 points.

Gainers led losers by 449 to 412 while 352 counters were unchanged, 472 untraded and 23 others suspended.

Volume increased to 2.31 billion units worth RM1.75 billion from 2.02 billion units worth RM1.90 billion recorded last Friday.

A dealer said the local benchmark would likely move higher this week with the immediate hurdle at the 1,700-point psychological level, underpinned by improving crude oil prices.

He said oil prices increased as speculations intensified about potential producer action to support prices in an oversupplied market.

The news lifted the Brent crude oil futures up 33 cents to US$ 47.30 per barrel as at 3pm while US West Texas Intermediate ( WTI) crude futures rose 36 cents to US$ 44.85 a barrel.

Of the heavyweights, TNB increased 24 sen to RM14.76, Maybank fell four sen to RM7.97 and Public Bank added six sen to RM19.76.

Among actives, SMTrack and APFT were flat at 9.5 sen and six sen, respectively, while KNM Group added 2.5 sen to 44 sen.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index rose 40.97 points to 11,875.73, FBMT100 Index added 38.16 points to 11,567.68 and the FBM 70 gained 29.98 points to 13,651.85.

The FBM Emas Shariah Index rose 54.75 points to 12,528.51 and the FBM Ace was 0.34 of-a-point better at 5,512.04.

Sector-wise, the Finance Index rose 10.73 points to 14,492.91, Industrial Index added 1.18 points to 3,190.25 and the Plantation Index was 37.99 points higher at 7,739.46.

Main Market turnover declined to 1.19 billion shares worth RM1.6 billion from 1.21 billion shares worth RM1.77 billion on Friday.

The ACE Market volume rose to 356.3 million units valued at RM65.37 million from 276.67 million units valued at RM66.82 million last week.

Warrants swelled to 765.23 million shares worth RM73.5 million from 530.61 million shares worth RM60.99 million previously.

Consumer products accounted for 87.97 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products ( 223.98 million), construction ( 83.73 million), trade and services ( 507.47 million), technology ( 69.2 million), infrastructure ( 8.98 million), SPAC (7.98 million), finance ( 67.36 million), hotels (125,700), properties ( 86.29 million), plantations ( 39.07 million), mining (nil), REITs (14.55 million) and closed/fund (31,800).