KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 5 — Bursa Malaysia erased yesterday’s losses to close higher today, buoyed by positive sentiment following a robust recovery in Chinese stocks after tumbling nearly 7 per cent, a dealer said.

At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 12.33 points or 0.75 per cent to 1,665.70, lifted by buying support for selected bluechips.

Mercury Securities head of research Edmund Tham said the recovery staged by Chinese equities lifted global sentiment, including Malaysia.

“The local market is much more stable now and in the coming days it will rebound further,” he told Bernama.

The circuit-breaker of a sell-off in the Chinese stock market yesterday had a domino effect globally. Malaysia lost 39.15 points to close at 1,653.37.

However, regional stocks today remained lower as Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 76.98 points to 18,374.00, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined 27.66 points to 21,299.46, and Singapore’s Straits Times was down 12.80 points to 2,823.17.

On the local scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index added 86.41 points to 11,647.68, the FBMT100 Index advanced 82.63 points to 11,319.07 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index perked 118.98 points to 12,666.93. The FBM 70 gained 91.18 points to 13,070.27 and the FBM Ace rose 45.73 points to 6,316.77.

Sector-wise, the Industrial Index increased 39.03 points to 3,221.49, the Finance Index firmed 65.03 points to 13,967.12 and the Plantation Index put on 147.31 points to 7,650.73.

Market breadth was positive as advancers topped decliners 541 to 346 while 343 counters were unchanged, 493 untraded and 12 others were suspended.

Total volume eased to 1.83 billion shares worth RM1.94 billion from 1.92 billion shares worth RM1.73 billion yesterday.

Among top gainers, Petronas Dagangan soared 86 sen to RM24.50, Malaysia Pacific Industries jumped 83 sen to RM10.30, BAT rose 76 sen to RM55 and Petronas Gas was up 50 sen to RM22.14.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank gained 13 sen to RM8.33, Public Bank gained 4 sen to RM18.32, Petronas Chemicals was 40 sen higher to RM7.46 and Axiata edged up 4 sen to RM6.34.

TNB, despite its plan to issue US$3 billion (RM13 billion) denominated sukuk, eased 8 sen to RM13.20 with 8.91 million shares changing hands.

Main Market volume eased to 1.02 billion units worth RM1.74 billion from 1.08 billion units valued at RM1.56 billion traded yesterday. Turnover on the ACE Market fell to 406.18 million shares worth RM109.99 million from 486.24 million shares worth RM106.17 million.

Warrants improved to 405.11 million units worth RM90.31 million from 345.26 million units valued at RM69.13 million.

Consumer products accounted for 117.80 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (271.09 million), construction (66.19 million), trade and services (324.63 million), technology (41.61 million), infrastructure (9.60 million), SPAC (26.98 million), finance (34.37 million), hotels (379,000), properties (88.93 million), plantations (27.57 million), mining (6,000), REITs (7.02 million) and closed/fund (2,000). — Bernama