KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 19 — Bursa Malaysia ended firmer with trading dominated by persistent buying momentum in selected blue chips and Bursa’s ACE Market stocks, dealers said.

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) went up 3.56 points, or 0.22 per cent, to 1,660.06 today while the FBM Ace surged 329.77 points to 6,923.62.

Petronas Dagangan was the top contributor to the gain in the key index (+1.24 points), adding 68 sen to RM24.00, with 740,000 million shares traded, as investors expect it to perform well with global crude oil prices rebounding.

Of the other leading movers, Maybank added 6 sen to RM8.24, PPB Group surged 34 sen to RM15.74, Petronas Chemicals chalked up 3 sen to RM6.60, while CIMB Group and Digi.com added 2 sen each to RM4.56 and RM5.12 respectively.

On the broader market, market breadth was positive with gainers outpacing decliners 502 to 425 while 334 counters were unchanged, 577 untraded and 15 others suspended.

Total volume rose to 3.43 billion units worth RM2.12 billion from yesterday’s 2.41 billion units worth RM2.03 billion.

Instacom, which received a query on unusual market activity from the exchange owing to a rise in price and volume of the company’s shares of late, finished 5 sen better at 31.5 sen and led Bursa’s active list today with 372.35 million shares transacted.

Of the other actives, Hibiscus rose 5.5 sen to 28.5 sen, Genetec added 3 sen to 22.5 sen, while Borneo Oil and its warrant (C) improved 1.5 sen to 15.5 sen and 9 sen respectively.

An equity trader said the upbeat overnight performance on Wall Street had attracted buyers.

“Investors started wading into selective value-buy blue chips in banking, plantations and oil and gas, as well as small-capitalised stocks, especially in Bursa’s ACE market.

“There are 107 companies listed on the ACE market and about 57 per cent are profitable and ready for rotational play,” he told Bernama.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index advanced 14.58 points to 11,569.90, the FBMT100 Index increased 12.87 points to 11,241.41, the FBM Emas Shariah Index added 17.00 points to 12,507.66, while the FBM 70 shed 26.53 points to 12,837.56.

Sector-wise, the Finance Index rose 26.24 points to 14,032.71 and the Industrial Index added 20.54 points to 3,294.93. The Plantation Index fell 26.85 points to 7,453.33.

Main Market volume expanded to 1.86 billion units valued at RM1.78 billion, from 1.39 billion units valued at RM1.82 billion transacted yesterday.

Turnover on the ACE Market soared to 1.34 billion shares worth RM304.61 million, from yesterday’s 743.30 million shares worth RM166.53 million.

Warrants were trimmed to 217.64 million units valued at RM32.96 million against 283.10 million units valued at RM38.72 million previously.

Consumer products accounted for 239.48 billion shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (618.91 million), construction (62.71 million), trade and services (636.35 million), technology (98.62 million), infrastructure (15.24 million), SPAC (11.94 million), finance (34.52 million), hotels (926,200 million), properties (119.42 million), plantations (19.18 million), mining (16,500), REITs (3.73 million) and closed/fund (105,400). — Bernama