Bursa Malaysia ends higher
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia ended higher today helped by strong buying support from local institutional funds in selected heavyweights, dealers said.
At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) finished 1.24 points higher at 1,671.79 from Thursday's close of 1,670.55.
The benchmark index, which opened 4.05 points higher at 1,674.60, moved between 1,668.87 and 1,675.39 throughout the day.
The plantation stocks rose following better quarterly financial results.
KL Kepong gained 14 sen to RM23.72, IOI Corp increased one sen to RM4.41 and Kretam was 1.5 sen higher to 54.5 sen.
Market breadth was positive with gainers led losers by 469 to 327, 383 counters were unchanged, 492 untraded and 14 others were suspended.
Volume, however, fell to 1.43 billion units worth RM1.53 billion against Thursday's 1.81 billion units worth RM2.03 billion.
Affin Hwang Investment Bank Vice-President/Retail Research Head, Datuk Dr Nazri Khan Adam Khan, said although the market was higher, trading was thin as some investors stayed on the sidelines to await the release of US jobs data later tonight for direction.
"They are adopting a wait-and-see attitude for now until the US' interest rate scenario is much more clear," Nazri told Bernama.
He said the FBM KLCI would trade lower next week if the US were to release positive job statistics which will influence the timing of interest rate increase.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index firmed 15.35 points to 11,750.81, FBMT 100 Index increased 13.05 points to 11,462.76 and the FBM Emas Syariah Index rose 9.86 points to 12,391.47.
The FBM 70 surged 32.05 points to 13,607.82 and the FBM Ace was 40.16 points higher at 5,241.31.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index added 35.59 points to 14,379.36 and the Plantation Index gained 16.44 points to 7,811.42.
The Industrial Index, however, declined 5.25 points to 3,134.76.
Of the heavyweights, Public Bank gained 14 sen to RM19.90 and IHH Healthcare inched up three sen to RM6.59.
Petronas Chemicals and Maxis each fell two sen to RM6.67 and RM6.17, respectively.
Maybank was flat at RM7.75.
Among actives, AirAsia X and Vivocom each gained half-a-sen to 40 sen and 28 sen, respectively.
AirAsia declined three sen to RM2.94. Eka Noodles was flat at four sen.
Main Market turnover fell to 894.39 million shares worth RM1.45 million from Thursday's 1.06 billion shares worth RM1.92 billion.
The ACE Market volume decreased to 212.11 million units valued at RM35.61 million from 330.64 million units valued at RM48.09 million yesterday.
Warrants decreased to 325.32 million shares worth RM46.69 million from 411.21 million shares worth RM59.46 million on Thursday.
Consumer products accounted for 105.87 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (209.06 million), construction (41.15 million), trade and services (352.67 million), technology (56.08 million), infrastructure (8.96 million), SPAC (5.58 million), finance (43.29 million), hotels (91,000), properties (47.52 million), plantations (17.89 million), mining (nil), REITs (6.15 million) and closed/fund (62,900).
The physical price of gold as at 5pm stood at RM166.82 per gramme, up RM1.06 from RM165.76 at 5pm yesterday. — Bernama