KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia finished 0.98% firmer, with trading volume across the board remaining at a high of 9.5 billion units after touching a record high of 11.21 billion units yesterday.
At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KCLI (FBM KLCI) jumped 13.81 points, or 0.98 per cent, to 1,423.97 from 1,410.16 at Monday’s close.
Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd head of research Kenny Yee said the high trading volume was mainly supported by retail participants as the stock market emerged as one of the most sought-after risk assets following Bank Negara Malaysia’s move to cut the Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) to as low as 2%.
“Investors, especially the retail participants, are looking for some margins from the stock market as the OPR cuts had lowered the fixed deposit rates offered by the banks,” he told Bernama.
Trading volume stood at 9.51 billion units worth RM4.64 billion compared with 11.21 billion units worth RM4.40 billion yesterday.
At the opening, the barometer index was 9.61 points higher at 1,419.77, and hovered between 1,418.76 and 1,428.12 throughout the day.
Market breadth, however, was negative with losers edging past gainers 554 to 500, while 335 counters were unchanged, 502 untraded and 19 others suspended.
Yee said profit-taking emerged today as Bursa Malaysia was one of the strongest market performers in Asean.
“The market is still in trading mode now, but we saw profit-taking across the board, mainly in individual stocks,” he said.
However, he dismissed the notion that profit-taking was mainly in glove and energy-linked counters.
“It just happened to be that those counters were the mostly traded stocks on the bourse, but investors actually took the profits across the board,” he added.
Of the heavyweights, Petronas Chemicals bagged 28 sen to RM5.84, Sime Darby and Dialog increased 12 sen each to RM4.82 and RM3.65, respectively, KLK jumped 72 sen to RM21.22 and Genting Malaysia rose 10 sen to RM2.38.
Rubber glove index-linked counters Hartalega lost 12 sen to RM9.10 and Top Glove eased two sen to RM10.48.
Energy-linked stocks continued to lead the most active counters, with KNM easing two sen to 22 sen, Velesto and Icon Offshore losing half-a-sen to 16.5 sen and 12 sen respectively, Bumi Armada slipping 1.5 sen to 24.5 sen, while Sapura Energy was flat at 10 sen.
Top gainer F&N bagged 88 sen to RM32.12 and top loser Supermax-C81 was 15.5 sen lower at 89.5 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index expanded 92.13 points to 10,071.46, the FBMT 100 Index gained 101.68 points to 9,917.12, while the FBM Emas Shariah Index surged 108.77 points to 11,408.68.
The FBM 70 soared 150.56 points to 12,481.00 but the FBM ACE fell 39.91 points to 5,363.40.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index strengthened 83.83 points to 12,414.92, the Industrial Products and Services Index ticked up 2.22 points to 123.81 and the Plantation Index soared 200.32 points to 6,534.0.
Main Market volume narrowed to 7.04 billion shares worth RM4.13 billion from 8.70 billion shares worth RM3.96 billion on Monday.
Warrants turnover widened to 727.86 million units valued at RM123.03 million from 539.83 million units valued at RM102.03 million yesterday.
Volume on the ACE Market eased to 1.74 billion shares worth RM386.61 million against 1.96 million shares worth RM337.78 million yesterday.
Consumer products and services accounted for 601.63 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (803.33 million), construction (730.25 million), technology (523.95 million), SPAC (nil), financial services (63.83 million), property (328.17 million), plantations (581.81 million), REITs (11,600), closed/fund (100,000), energy (2.68 billion), healthcare (92.72 million), telecommunications and media (411.04 million), transportation and logistics (169.31 million), and utilities (40.38 million). - Bernama
