KUALA LUMPUR: Plantation stocks, buoyed by better crude palm oil (CPO) prices, lifted Bursa Malaysia to close higher today, a dealer said.
Among the index-linked plantation companies, KLK jumped 18 sen to RM23.82, IOI increased five sen to RM4.25 and Sime Darby Plantation added four sen to RM4.82.
Together, these counters contributed 1.37 points to the benchmark index’s rise.
At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 4.17 points or 0.25% to the day’s high of 1,656.58 compared with Wednesday’s 1,652.41.
The index opened 1.33 points higher at 1,653.74 and moved between 1,650.32 and 1,656.58 during the day.
Market breadth was, however, negative as losers outnumbered gainers 500 to 301, while 435 counters were unchanged, 684 untraded and 16 others suspended.
Turnover fell to 2.76 billion units worth RM2 billion versus 3.22 billion units worth RM2.29 billion recorded yesterday.
Head of research at Inter-Pacific Securities, Pong Teng Siew, said CPO prices have improved after trading on a downtrend.
The commodity’s price began to pick up on expectations that exports to China and India would pick up soon.
“This has spurred the CPO prices to increase. It also offset the choppy trading on Bursa Malaysia and capped it from falling below the 1,650 level,” he told Bernama.
Pong, however, said on the broader market, the local bourse and regional equity markets were still trading on a cautious mode as investors awaited the outcome of the European Central Bank’s monetary policy meeting today.
Among the heavyweights, Maybank fell one sen to RM8.75, Public Bank lost two sen to RM22.68, Tenaga was flat at RM13.74 and PetChem was 15 sen higher at RM7.65.
As for the actives, KNM added half-a-sen to 41.5 sen, while Netx and Green Packet warrants were both flat at 1.5 sen and 13 sen, respectively.
The FBM Emas Index rose 6.78 points to 11,763.32, the FBMT 100 Index advanced 9.52 points to 11,585.90 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index gained 4.78 points to 12,138.04.
The FBM 70 slid 67.71 points to 14,796.63, the FBM Ace was down by 0.42 point at 4,767.11.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index edged up 11.82 points to 16,431.69, the Industrial Products and Services Index added 1.82 points to 156.21 and the Plantation Index was 41.69 points higher at 6,846.60.
Main Market volume declined to 1.92 billion shares worth RM1.86 billion from 2.25 billion shares worth RM2.1 billion recorded on Wednesday.
Warrants turnover decreased to 378.21 million units valued at RM72.39 million against 520.19 million units worth RM105.67 million previously.
Volume on the ACE Market was slightly higher at 459.72 million shares worth RM71.68 million from yesterday’s 445.06 million shares worth RM83.25 million.
Consumer products and services accounted for 240.82 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (178.94 million), construction (133.55 million), technology (169.16 million), SPAC (nil), financial services (41.33 million), property (69.58 million), plantation (10.46 million), REITs (11.68 million), closed/fund (1,000), energy (549.19 million), healthcare (24.20 million), telecommunications and media (453.53 million), transportation and logistics (18.94 million), and utilities (20.08 million).
The physical price of gold as at 5.00pm stood at RM182.65 per gramme, up 21 sen from RM182.44 at 5.00pm yesterday. — Bernama
