Bursa M'sia opens higher

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened higher today in line with stronger Wall Street performance last Friday.
At 9.15 am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 6.07 points to 1,867.57, after opening 2.71 higher at 1,864.21 from Friday's close of 1,861.50.
On the broader market, gainers led loser 275 to 114, while 249 counters were unchanged, 1,257 untraded and 64 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 369.998 million shares worth RM155.003 million.
JF Apex Securities said the FBM KLCI could retest the resistance of 1,880 points today following the bullish momentum recorded at the end of trading day last week.
"The US markets rallied on Friday in volatile trading as interest rate came off a four-year high. The European stocks edged higher following quarterly earnings and US Federal Reserve monetary policy report," it said in a research note today.
Among heavyweights, Maybank jumped 12 sen to RM10.38, Public Bank soared 24 sen to RM23.04, CIMB added five sen to RM7.24, while TNB, Petronas Chemicals and Axiata were flat at RM15.64, RM8.11 and RM5.65, respectively.
Of the active counters, Sumatec, AirAsia X and PUC edged up half-a-sen each to 8.5 sen, 44.5 sen and 27.5 sen, respectively, Green Packet rose 1.5 sen to 50 sen, while Diversified Gateway Solutions was flat at 12 sen.
LEAP market debutant Metro Healthcare jumped 10 sen to 33 sen, with 5,000 shares done.
The FBM Emas Index expanded 43.17 points to 13,356.95, the FBMT 100 Index went up 44.67 points to 13,050.06 and the FBM 70 improved 64.02 points to 16,436.57.
The FBM Ace fell 40.66 points to 6,409.32 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index advanced 16.81 points to 13,618.2.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index surged 118.38 points to 18,120.16, the Plantation Index gained 9.23 points to 8,070.72, while the Industrial Index eased 5.62 points to 3,246.510.
Gold futures contracts on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives were untraded in the early session today.
At 9.45 am, spot month February 2018, March 2018, April 2018 and May 2018 remained pegged at RM167.60, RM167.85, RM168.60 and RM168.70 a gramme, respectively.
Volume was nil, while open interest amounted to 71 contracts.
At 9.30 am, the price of physical gold was down by one sen to RM161.82 a gramme. — Bernama