Bursa Malaysia ends sharply higher on bullish external sentiment
KUALA LUMPUR: The bull run continued on Bursa Malaysia with the key index sharply higher today buoyed by bullish external factors, dealers said.
At 5 pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI ended at its intraday high of 1,832.15, up 14.18 points from Friday's close of 1,817.97 after opening 1.77 points better at 1,819.74.
The market barometer moved between 1,813.03 and 1,832.15 throughout the day.
Leading the gains among index-linked counters were Petronas Gas, which rose 84 sen to RM19.20, followed by Petronas Dagangan which chalked up 46 sen to RM25.16, Hong Leong Bank perked 40 sen to RM17.60, TNB put on 28 sen to RM15.70 and KLK garnered 24 sen to RM25.12.
A dealer said oil and gas related stocks received a big boost from the improvement in oil prices following a dip in the number of US rigs drilling for new production.
He said Brent crude futures, the trendsetter for global oil prices, were at US$67.77 a barrel, up 0.2 per cent from their last close.
He added that the local stock market also took cue from regional markets as Asian shares crept towards their all-time peaks after Wall Street boasted its best start to a year in over a decade.
Of the actives, Sapura Energy rose 16.5 sen to 97.5 sen, UMW O&G climbed 4.5 sen to 45.5 sen, PA Resources added one sen to 10.5 sen, XOX edged up 1.5 sen to 12 sen and Sumatec Resources gained half-a-sen to six sen.
The FBM Emas Index increased 150.1 points to 13,315.51, the FBMT 100 Index soared 136.811 points to 12,946.49, the FBM Emas Syariah Index surged 196.46 points to 13,807.2, the FBM 70 rose 299.74 points to 16,792.35 and the FBM Ace put on 103.96 points to 6,997.93.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index bagged 154.191 points to 17,240.47, the Industrial Index rose 44.13 points to 3,436.31, while the Plantation Index gained 89.63 points to 8,094.39.
Overall market breadth was bullish as gainers outnumbered losers 853 to 312, while 327 counters were unchanged, 323 untraded and 31 others suspended.
The strong bull run resulted in a relatively high turnover of 6.96 billion units worth RM4.58 billion compared with 5.84 billion shares worth RM3.94 billion on Friday.
Main Market volume rose to 4.81 billion units worth RM4.23 billion from 3.84 billion units worth RM3.611 billion on Friday.
Volume on the ACE Market decreased to 1.17 billion shares worth RM234.05 million from Friday's 1.29 billion shares worth RM236.02 million.
Warrants volume improved to 964.8 million units valued at RM111.98 million from 700.58 million units worth RM91.53 million previously.
Consumer products accounted for 236.15 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (1.22 billion), construction (230.18 million), trade and services (2.35 billion), technology (265.54 million), infrastructure (9.56 million), SPAC (17.14 million), finance (110.97 million), hotels (1.74 million), properties (283.72 million), plantations (74.54 million), mining (233,300), REITs (5.55 million), and closed/fund (10,000).
The physical price of gold as at 5pm stood at RM163.56 per gramme, down 20 sen from RM163.76 at 5pm last Friday. — Bernama