Bursa opens higher on continued buying of heavyweight counters

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened higher today on continued buying of heavyweights like Public Bank, Hong Leong, Petronas Chemicals and Maybank.
At 9.04am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) opened 4.33 points better at 1,741.47 from Thursday's close of 1,737.14.
The index opened 5.24 points higher at 1,742.38.
Public Bank rose 12 sen to RM20.00, Hong Leong was up 10 sen to RM13.70, Petronas Chemicals added eight sen to RM7.36 while Maybank was five sen better at RM8.90.
Market breath was positive with gainers outpacing decliners 195 to 58 with 207 counters unchanged, 1,262 untraded and 27 others were suspended.
Turnover stood at 136,36 million shares worth RM65.49 million.
Maybank Investment Bank, in its note today, said the FBMKLCI 'skyrocketed' yesterday, rising 19.78 points to close the day at 1,737.14, a new high since Aug 2015.
However, despite the overwhelming positive sentiment, it expected some consolidation today,
The investment bank expected the benchmark index to range between 1,730 and 1,745 today.
Among heavyweights, Tenaga was flat at RM13.72, Sime Darby rose three sen to RM9.33, CIMB inched up three sen to RM5.62 but IHH fell two sen to RM6.05.
Actively-traded stocks, Olympia Industries rose two sen to 14 sen, Iris Corporation My EG gained one sen each to 16 sen and RM1.85, respectively, and Dataprep added three sen to 30 sen.
The FBM Emas Index increased 26.02 points to 12,303.26, the FBMT 100 Index improved 25.65 points to 11,957.07 while the FBM Emas Syariah Index was 17.79 points higher at 12,691.95.
The FBM 70 advanced 15.19 points to 14,267.34 and the FBM Ace gained 30.10 points to 5,539.15.
Sector-wise, the Plantation Index inched up 6.30 points to 8,157.85, Finance Index jumped 60.05 points to 15,666.55 and the Industrial Index gained 5.37 points to 3,278.46.
The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM169.24 per gramme, up 35 sen from RM168.89 at 5pm yesterday. — Bernama