KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 6 — Bursa Malaysia bucked the regional trend to close higher today, paring earlier losses as investors seized the opportunity of the heavy sell-down to bargain hunt, a dealer said.

At the closing bell, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 2.27 points, or 0.14 per cent, to 1,667.97, after hitting a low of 1,661.69 in the morning session.

Kenanga Research said yesterday the market managed to shrug off the previous day’s jitters from a weaker Wall Street caused by the plunge in Chinese stocks.

It said despite returning to the black the bounce could be potentially short-lived due to the low volume and lacklustre key technical indicators.

“We reckon the weak ringgit, poor crude oil price, renewed concerns over economic slowdown in China and heightened tension in the Middle East will continue to dampen investor sentiment in the near term,” it said.

Regional stocks remained lower.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 182.68 points to 18,191.32, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined 104.94 points to 21,083.78, and Singapore’s Straits Times was down 30.43 points to 2,803.80.

On the local scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index advanced 48.05 points to 11,695.73, FBMT100 Index added 41.80 points to 11,360.87 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index increased 41.30 points to 12,708.23.

The FBM 70 perked 143.04 points to 13,213.31 and the FBM Ace rose 48.11 points to 6,364.88.

Sector-wise, the Industrial Index added 4.90 points to 3,226.39, Finance Index firmed 42.39 points to 14,009.51 and the Plantation Index garnered 82.71 points to 7,733.44.

Market breadth was positive as advancers overwhelmed decliners by 595 to 321 while 324 counters were unchanged, 483 untraded and 12 others were suspended.

Total volume advanced to 2.43 billion shares worth RM2.31 billion from 1.83 billion shares worth RM1.94 billion yesterday.

Among top gainers, Petron gained 41 sen to RM6, Malaysia Pacific Industries and Genting garnered 30 sen to RM10.60, Lafarge rose 24 sen to RM9.08 and KLK added 18 sen to RM23.18.

Of the heavyweights, Public Bank edged up two sen to RM18.34, Petronas Chemicals eked out four sen to RM7.50, Axiata gave up seven sen to RM6.27 and Maybank was flat at RM8.33.

Main Market volume rose to 1.35 billion units worth RM2.05 billion from 1.02 billion units worth RM1.74 billion on Tuesday.

Turnover on the ACE Market increased to 625.93 million shares valued at RM169.27 million from 406.18 million shares valued at RM109.99 yesterday.

Warrants surged to 453.51 million units worth RM96.23 from 405.11 million units valued RM90.31 million previously.

Consumer products accounted for 155.95 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (307.60 million), construction (69.68 million), trade and services (429.18 million), technology (75.35 million), infrastructure (11.75 million), SPAC (42.51 million), finance (45.40 million), hotels (630,200), properties (145.10 million), plantations (63.67 million), mining (20,000), REITs (6.44 million) and closed/fund (46,100). — Bernama