KL shares marginally higher in early trade

KUALA LUMPUR: Share prices on Bursa Malaysia opened marginally higher today in tandem with the upbeat overnight performance on Wall Street.
At 9.15am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,738.56, up 0.90 of-a-point, from Wednesday's close of 1,737.66.
The key index opened 0.42 of-a-point better at 1,738.08.
Gains in three banking heavyweights – Maybank, Public Bank and Hong Leong Bank, boosted the composite index by a total contribution of 1.898 points, against the laggards led by the Genting group.
Market breadth was positive with gainers outpacing losers 174 to 118, while 238 counters were unchanged, 1,344 untraded and 47 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 224.85 million shares worth RM96.43 million.
Top-weighted Maybank rose three sen to RM9.28, Public Bank bagged eight sen to RM20.44 and Hong Leong Bank gained 20 sen to RM16.78.
Genting Bhd declined nine sen to RM8.99 while Genting Malaysia erased five sen to RM5.59.
A dealer said the local market opened higher this morning as the US Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 80.63 points, or 0.3%, to 24,585.43, a record following four straight sessions of gains, even after the US Federal Reserve (Fed) raised interest rates.
The Fed raised its benchmark federal-funds rate by a quarter percentage point to between 1.25% and 1.5% – its third increase in a year.
AllianceDBS Research in a note said the analysis of overall market action yesterday revealed that buying power was stronger than selling pressure.

"As such, the FBM KLCI would likely trade above the 1,737.66 level today," it said.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index rose 8.94 points to 12,478.78, the FBMT100 Index went up 6.31 points to 12,143.10 and the FBM Emas Syariah Index advanced 2.99 points to 12,846.03.
The FBM 70 added 8.14 points to 15,273.95 but the FBM Ace eased 8.00 points to 6,456.13.

On a sectoral basis, the Industrial Index gained 3.45 points to 3,150.94, the Finance Index garnered 45.24 points to 16,314.09 while the Plantation Index climbed 1.89 points to 7,833.32.
Among the actively-traded stocks this morning – Trive, NETX and Sapura Energy were flat at 5.5 sen, 4.5 sen and 81 sen respectively, while Key Asic added one sen to 23.5 sen.
Panasonic led the list of top gainers, putting on 50 sen to RM39.50, while the top loser was Aeon Credit which fell 42 sen to RM12.82.
The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at Rm159.29 per gramme, up RM1.43 from RM157.86 at 5pm yesterday. — Bernama