Bursa Malaysia opens higher
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened higher today after the Chinese New Year break, on continued positive sentiment, brought on by Malaysia's strong gross domestic product figure announced last week, dealers said.
At 9.03am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 3.67 points higher at 1,841.95, after opening 4.74 points better at 1,843.02 from last Thursday's close of 1,838.28.
Gainers led losers 177 to 25, while 137 counters were unchanged, 1,553 untraded and 19 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 114.96 million shares worth RM41.47 million.
A dealer said the 5.9% GDP growth was deemed as positive and took on the good momentum from last year, while improving investors' appetite on the local bourse.
He said with the volume having gone up the previous week, Bursa Malaysia is likely see an upward momentum this week.
"Investors are also taking cue from the firm close on Wall Street after it chalked up its best weekly performance since 2013 on Friday, in what was a sharp rebound from an earlier worst week in two years.
"A higher-than-expected inflation report will lead the US interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve to be more aggressive than expected," he added.
Among heavyweights, Maybank added two sen to RM10.12, Tenaga rose four sen to RM15.74, Public Bank increased 14 sen to RM21.98 and CIMB gained one sen to RM7.02.
Of the active counters, PUC and Hibiscus warrant added one sen each to 27 sen and 8.5 sen respectively, Hibiscus Petroleum gained 5.5 sen to RM1, while Sumatec and Globaltec were flat at eight sen and five sen.
The FBM Emas Index rose 44.88 points to 13,162.37, the FBMT 100 Index was up 43.34 points to 12,872.92 and the FBM 70 jumped 71.09 points to 16,176.38.
The FBM Emas Syariah Index gained 34.56 points to 13,469.66 and the FBM Ace added 19.62 points to 6,262.18.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index was 28 points higher at 17,622.41 and the Industrial Index improved 1.53 points to 3,204.19.But, the Plantation Index shed 24.22 points to 7,972.75.
The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM163.20 per gramme, down 72 sen from RM163.92 at 5pm last Thursday. — Bernama