Foreign-led buying pushes Bursa Malaysia to end at one-year high

KUALA LUMPUR: Foreign-led buying in finance-related and large-capitalised stocks has pushed Bursa Malaysia to close at over one-year high since April 15, 2016, showing signs that the key index may possibly exceed the 1,800-level within the second quarter of the year, says a dealer.
At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) finished 10.41 points higher at 1,778.47 from Friday's close of 1,768.06.
The index opened 1.10 points higher at 1,769.16 and moved between 1,769.16 and 1,781.55 throughout the day.
On the broader market, gainers outpaced losers 594 to 411, with 329 counters unchanged, 416 untraded and 18 others suspended.
Volume rose to 3.88 billion units worth RM3.48 billion from 3.10 billion units valued at RM2.89 billion last Friday.
The market was closed on Monday for the Labour Day public holiday.
Inter- Pacific Securities Sdn Bhd's Head of Research Pong Teng Siew said the surge in gainers, especially finance and large-cap stocks, appeared to be foreign led-buying.
"The net foreign buying on the local bourse has been pretty steady since mid-December last year, making Bursa Malaysia’s performance stronger than expected," he told Bernama.
Apart from that, he said the bullish performance on the local bourse was also in line with the strong regional market, which reacted positively to the upbeat overnight Wall Street, with the S&P 500 gaining 0.17% and Nasdaq Composite putting on 0.73%.
Regionally, Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 135.18 points to 19,445.70, Hong Kong's Hang Seng improved 81.0 points to 24,696.13 and Singapore's Straits Times was 35.67 points higher at 3,211.11.
"The strengthening of the ringgit against the US dollar, which saw an increase of about 0.3% today, also bolstered the inflow of foreign funds into the country," he added.
Of the finance-related heavyweights, Maybank gained two sen to RM9.60, Public Bank jumped 28 sen to RM20.24 and CIMB advanced 14 sen to to RM5.88.
Among other heavyweights, IHH perked one sen to RM6.19 and Maxis rose six sen to RM6.44.
Of the actives, DNex improved 6.5 sen to 66.5 sen and its warrant inched up two sen to 35 sen, AAX added three sen to 48 sen and XOX was 1.5 sen higher at 14 sen.
The FBM Emas Index increased 78.78 points to 12,710.30, the FBMT100 Index leapt 75.47 points to 12,334.73 and the FBM Emas Syariah Index perked 27.39 points to 12,999.88.
The FBM 70 was 105.24 points higher at 15,186.21 and the FBM Ace gained 31.39 points to 6,273.55.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index surged 170.74 points to 16,471.91, the Industrial Index was 20.81 points higher at 3,239.98 but the Plantation Index shed 29.28 points to 8,068.06.
Main Market turnover rose to 2.55 billion units worth RM3.29 billion from 1.89 billion units worth RM2.72 billion last Friday.
Volume on the ACE Market improved to 942.33 million shares worth RM154.47 million from last Friday's 893.22 million shares worth RM144.09 million.
Warrants expanded to 355.59 million units valued at RM40.55 million from 290.36 million units worth RM33.00 million last Friday.
Consumer products accounted for 120.09 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (492.82 million), construction (184.90 million), trade and services (1.0 billion), technology (269.83 million), infrastructure (16.77 million), SPAC (3.66 million ), finance (117.73 million), hotels (1.60 million), properties (261.27 million), plantations (63.87 million), mining 127,000), REITs (12.94 million), and closed/fund (147,600).
The physical price of gold as at 5pm stood at RM168.93 per gramme, down RM2.09 from RM171.02 at 5pm last Friday. — Bernama