Bursa M'sia ends higher
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia ended higher today, boosted by strong buying in selected heavyweights, led by Petronas Gas and Nestle, as well as financial stocks.
At 5 pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI finished at 1,853.92, up 8.06 points from Thursday's close of 1,845.86. It opened 1.19 lower at 1,843.95.
Market breadth was negative with losers outnumbering gainers 497 to 370, while 521 counters were unchanged, 478 untraded and 48 others suspended.
Turnover rose to 3.19 billion units valued at RM2.45 billion from 2.96 billion units worth RM2.85 billion recorded yesterday.
The market barometer moved between 1,843.95 and 1,853.92 throughout the day.
despite being traded easier in earlier sessions, the local bourse regain its momentum at mid-afternoon in line with Asian shares, a dealer said.
"Asian shares were modestly higher, erasing earlier losses as investors awaited US President Donald Trump's comments at the World Economic Forum in Davos," a dealer said.
Petronas Gas, Nestle, as well as financial stocks (Maybank, Public Bank, RHB and Hong Leong) contributed 6.77 points to the composite index.
Of the heavyweights, Tenaga and Petronas Chemicals fell two sen each to RM15.84 and RM7.98, respectively, while Axiata rose one sen to RM5.62 and Maxis gained two sen to RM6.08.
Among actives, AirAsia X added four sen to 43.5 sen, UMW Oil & Gas inched up one sen to 34.5 sen, Sapura Energy fell one sen to 80 sen, and Sumatec was half-a-sen lower at 10 sen.
The FBM Emas Index improved 38.23 points to 13,374.50, the FBMT 100 Index went up 41.48 points to 13,046.72 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index was 20.64 points better at 13,738.45.
The FBM 70 added 2.02 points to 16,743.16 but the FBM Ace depreciated 20.39 points to 6,673.93.
Sector-wise, the Finance Index jumped 114.87 points to 17,671.37, the Plantation Index rose 19.98 points to 8,081.21 and the Industrial Index gained 34.89 points to 3,398.21.
The Main Market fell to 1.9 billion units worth RM2.22 billion from 1.93 billion worth RM2.68 billion.
Volume on the ACE Market rose to 611.21 million shares valued at RM121.51 million from 378.66 million valued at RM69.98 million.
Warrants volume was higher at 672.94 million units worth RM99.87 million from 645.12 million units valued at RM93 million.
Consumer products accounted for 145.55 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (281.05 million), construction (66.64 million), trade and services (1.13 billion), technology (57.64 million), infrastructure (5.71 million), SPAC (3.27 million), finance (72.84 million), hotels (836,000 million), properties, (90.67 million), plantations (34.04 million), mining (221,900), REITs (9.25 million), and closed/fund (14,200).
The physical price of gold as at 5.00pm stood at RM163.03/g, down RM1.53 from RM164.56 at 5.00pm yesterday. — Bernama