Bursa kicks off last day of 1H17 marginally higher

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia kicked off the last day of the first half of the year marginally higher this morning, extending yesterday's uptrend on buying support for selected stocks.
At 9.07am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,772.23, up 0.87 of-a-point, from Thursday's close of 1,771.36.
The key index opened 2.27 points weaker at 1,770.32.
A dealer said Bursa would experience cautious trading today, in line with regional peers, as the sluggish performance on Wall Street overnight would weigh on sentiment.
The US stock market closed sharply lower dampened by persistent sell-off in technology stocks.
Back home, market breadth was neutral as gainers and decliners were equal at 118, while 181 counters were unchanged, 1,389 untraded while 53 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 77.41 million shares worth RM48.78 million.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index gained 3.84 points to 12,635.76, FBMT100 Index perked 3.59 points to 12,271.47 and FBM Ace increased 2.59 points to 6,532.94.
The FBM 70 decreased 4.84 points to 15,033.39 and the FBM Emas Syariah Index slipped 0.04 of-a-point to 12,849.95.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index rose 16.21 points to 16,816.46, the Industrial Index added 4.73 points to 3,274.96 while the Plantation Index was flat at 7,933.22.
Among heavyweights, Maybank, Sime Darby and Petronas Chemicals improved three sen each to RM9.66, RM9.60 and RM7.15, respectively, CIMB added one sen to RM6.65, while both Tenaga and Public Bank were flat at RM14.14 and RM20.30, respectively.
Of actives, Hiap Teck gained two sen to 38.5 sen, Berjaya Corp and Dataprep inched up half-a-sen to 35 sen and 42 sen, respectively, but Kinsteel slipped half-a-sen to five sen.
Hai-O topped the gainers list after rising 20 sen to RM4.10 while Teck Guan Perdana led the losers chart, giving up 26 sen for RM1.80.
The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM166.25 per gramme, down 24 sen from RM166.49 at 5pm yesterday. — Bernama