Bursa M'sia rebounds to open higher

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia rebounded to open higher today, after stocks on Wall Street made a strong overnight start to the week, dealers said.
At 9.05 am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,862.62, up 2.71 points from Monday's close of 1,859.91.
The key index opened 2.24 points higher at 1,862.15.
Market breadth was positive with 260 gainers against 53 losers, while 143 counters were unchanged, 1,448 untraded and 25 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 160.92 million shares worth RM74.74 million.
Public Investment Bank Bhd said Wall Street regained traction in tracking hopes that discussions between the US and China would prevent any escalation of the trade dispute between the two countries.
Meanwhile, Kenanga Research said fears of a trade war between China and the US had subsided following the news.
"The overall technical outlook remains weak as technical indicators look lacklustre.
"Given that the global market is sensitive towards the outcome of the trade discussions, we expect the FBM KLCI to remain volatile over the short-term," it said in a research note today.
Among heavyweights, Maybank and Public Bank were each flat at RM10.52 and RM23.92 respectively, Tenaga was down four sen to RM15.72, but CIMB increased one sen to RM7.21.
Meanwhile, ACE Market debutant, GDB Holdings Bhd was among the most actively traded stocks, gaining half-a-sen to 35.5 sen with 10.40 million shares traded.
For other actives, Sapura Energy rose 1.5 sen to 58 sen and Media Chinese International bagged one sen to 45 sen.
Of the gainers, Nestle jumped RM3.30 to RM151.30, PPB Group improved 34 sen to RM19.30 and United Plantation gained 26 sen to RM28.44.
The FBM Emas Index rose 37.51 points to 13,053.92, the FBMT 100 Index was 32.29 points better at 12,834.01 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index gained 43.30 points to 13,208.65.
The FBM 70 increased 85.91 points to 15,551.69 and the FBM Ace was 83.80 points higher at 5,694.14.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index inched up 15.85 points to 18,162.34, the Industrial Index increased 14.27 points to 3,248.61 and the Plantation Index gained 15.32 points to 8,050.07.
Gold futures contracts on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives were untraded this morning on a lack of catalysts.
At 9.31 am, spot month March 2018, April 2018, May 2018 and June 2018 stood at RM168.60, RM169.50, RM170.00 and RM170.00 a gramme respectively.
Volume was nil, while open interest amounted to 72 contracts.
At 9.30 am, the price of physical gold rose 24 sen to RM163.54 a gramme from RM163.30 a gramme at 5 pm on Monday. — Bernama