Bursa M'sia snaps losing streak to open higher
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia snapped its losing streak over five consecutive-days to open higher this morning as bargain-hunting emerged as the Wall Street rebounded, overnight.
At 9.05 am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 4.16 point firmer at 1,722.27 from Thursday's close of 1,718.11.
The index opened 2.70 points stronger at 1,720.81 at 9am.
On the broader market, gainers led losers 147 to 74 while 168 counters remained unchanged with 1,466 untraded and 20 others were suspended.
Turnover stood at 85.30 million shares worth RM36.38 million.
In a note today, Public Investment Bank Bhd said the rebound on the local bourse occurred after global equities recouped some of their recent losses, overnight, as some broadly encouraging corporate earnings reports offset further weakness in crude oil prices.
"This helped encourage 'dip-buyers' back into the markets," it said.
Meanwhile, Maybank Investment Bank Bhd said expectation of a resilient third-quarter gross domestic product growth for Malaysia also helped the lift the local key index.
"Technically, we expect the FBM KLCI to range between 1,715 and 1,730 today, with downside supports to be located between 1,713 and 1,700," it said.
Among heavyweights, Maybank gained one sen to RM9.22, Public Bank rose two sen to RM20.46, Sime Darby added nine sen to RM9.09, Petronas Chemicals perked four sen to RM7.34 while Tenaga was flat at RM14.84.
Newly ACE market-listed company – Kejuruteraan Asastera – topped the list of the most active counters by bagging six sen to 31 sen and saw 27.61 million shares changing hands after five minutes of trading.
Other active stocks included DGB Asia which earned one sen to 12 sen while DGSB, Hubline and Trive Property were unchanged at 8.5 sen, 12.5 sen and eight sen, respectively.
The FBM Emas Index was 25.60 points firmer at 12,429.58, FBMT 100 Index advanced 27.43 points to 12,081.56, FBM Emas Shariah Index perked 24.56 points to 12,884.38, FBM 70 climbed 28.60 points to 15,386.18 and the FBM Ace was 14.52 points better at 6,538.92.
Sector-wise, the Industrial Index was 5.65 points better at 3,173.47, the Finance Index improved 14.43 points to 16,054.71 but the Plantation Index lost 1.36 points to 7,901.05.
The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM166.07/g, up 20 sen from RM165.87 at 5.00pm yesterday. – Bernama