Bursa Malaysia closes higher
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia closed higher today on continued buying interest in selected heavyweights, driven by industrial products and trade/services counters, such as PetGas and Telekom.
At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 10.35 points to close at 1,830.17 from last Friday's close of 1,819.82 points.
It opened 5.61 points lower at 1,825.43 at 9am, and fluctuated between 1,824.89 and 1,834.45 throughout the day.
However, losers outpaced gainers 484 to 453, while 396 counters were unchanged, 524 untraded and 31 others suspended.
Volume declined to 1.80 billion units worth RM2.26 billion from 2.45 billion shares worth RM2.67 billion last Friday.
Dealers said share prices on Bursa Malaysia settled higher today in tracking the rebound on Wall Street last Friday and rising global oil prices.
"Brent crude oil rose by 1.2% or 75 US cents on Monday to US$63.54 per barrel after declining for the sixth straight session previously," said a dealer.
The dealer said on the local front, buying interest was active across the board on rising optimism of a better fourth quarter 2017 gross domestic product (GDP) growth, to be announced on Feb 14.
Of heavyweights, Maybank and Tenaga gained four sen each to RM10.06 and RM15.76 respectively, Public Bank improved 14 sen to RM21.94, PetGas expanded 28 sen to RM17.76 and Telekom rose 22 sen to RM6.13.
Among actives, PUC bagged one sen to 24 sen, UMW Oil was flat at 30.5 sen, while Green Packet fell 1.5 sen to 48 sen.
The FBM Emas Index improved 41.54 points to 13,016.60, the FBMT 100 Index rose 43.62 points to 12,745.46 and the FBM 70 shed 42.11 points to 15,906.65.
The FBM Emas Shariah Index surged 40.56 points to 13,318.20 and the FBM Ace contracted 3.07 points to 6,085.25.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index was 33.13 points higher at 17,489.61, the Industrial Index gained 4.26 points to 3,225.62 and the Plantation Index added 15.74 points to 7,961.77.
The Main Market volume fell to 1.19 billion units worth RM2.15 billion from Friday's 1.57 billion units worth RM2.50 billion.
Volume on the ACE Market decreased to 287.89 million shares valued at RM50.82 million from 359.56 million shares valued at RM58.36 million.
Warrants volume declined to 310.92 million units worth RM64.11 million from the 511.18 million units worth RM106.12 million.
Consumer products accounted for 43.56 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (225.82 million), construction (67.25 million), trade and services (538.60 million), technology (101.51 million), infrastructure (7.50 million), SPAC (1.98 million), finance (57.64 million), hotels (577,600), properties (108.47 million), plantations (35.94 million), mining (171,300), REITs (9.87 million) and closed/fund (3,000). — Bernama