Bursa welcomes Year of the Rooster on positive note

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened marginally higher today, as traders welcomed the first trading day of the Year of the Rooster.

At 9am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) opened 0.09 of-a-point better at 1,686.45.

The index closed at 1,686.36 on half-trading day last Friday.

The market resumed trading after being closed for the Chinese New Year holiday on Monday.

A dealer said trading today could, however, be cautious as trade on Asian share markets is expected to be thinned by the Chinese New Year.

"Many local traders are still on extended holiday for the Chinese New Year," he added.

Market breadth was negative with decliners outpacing gainers 143 to 170, while 207 counters were unchanged and 1,206 others untraded.

Turnover stood at 108.820 million shares worth RM90.989 million.

The FBM Emas Index eased 37.34 points to 11,791.32, the FBMT100 Index slipped 40.70 points to 11,491.68, while the FBM Emas Syariah Index went down 45.50 points to 12,275.08.

The FBM Ace perked 15.91 points to 4,955.68 and the FBM 70 declined 15.22 points to 13,596.58.

On a sectoral basis, the Plantation Index gained 4.68 points to 7957.58, the Finance Index declined 11.18 points to 14,872.60, while the Industrial Index trimmed 25.75 points to 3,228.27.

Actively traded stocks this morning included SC Estate Builder, AirAsia X, Dolphin and SKH Consortium.
The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM164.81 per gramme, up RM1.91 from RM162.90 at 5pm last Friday. — Bernama