KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 8 — Bursa Malaysia bucked the regional trend to open higher this morning, spurred by buying support in the index-linked counters led by Top Glove.

At 9.05am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) gained 4.22 points to 1,627.11 after opening 2.55 points better at 1,625.44.

Top Glove lifted the composite index by 1.272 points after rising eight sen to RM6.68 with 1.99 million shares changing hands.

The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) had yesterday disposed of another 7.15 million shares in Top Glove, reducing its holding in the world’s largest medical glove maker to 5.63 per cent.

The retirement fund sold the shares in a single tranche on Dec 2.

Meanwhile, most of regional bourses were on the downtrend on the back of concerns over growing number of Covid-19 cases.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index lost 1.23 per cent to 26,506.85, Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.25 per cent to 26,482.2, but Singapore’s Straits Times Index added 0.09 per cent to 2,828.18.

Back home, the overall market breadth on Bursa Malaysia was positive with gainers overwhelming losers 391 to 181, while 353 counters were unchanged, 1,198 untraded and 19 others suspended.

Volume stood at 709.18 million units worth RM294.61 million.

Malacca Securities Sdn Bhd expects buying support to surface within the construction, building materials, as well as transportation and logistics companies today on the back of relaxation of the conditional movement control order (CMCO) measures.

"We believe market players may be on the lookout for opportunities within the aviation, tourism and gaming sectors on the back of the uplift of interstate travel ban.

"Meanwhile, the construction and building materials stocks may regain traction as traders anticipate some contracts to be dished out moving forward following the Budget 2021 approval,” the research firm said in a note today.

Among heavyweights, Maybank added one sen to RM8.28, Public Bank bagged 10 sen to RM18.70, Tenaga and Hartalega gained four sen each to RM10.94 and RM6.68, respectively, but Petronas Chemicals shed six sen to RM7.54.

Among the actives, Yong Tai perked 1.5 sen to 40 sen, AT Systematization and P.A Resources added half-a-sen each to 19.5 sen and 18.5 sen, respectively, while Nexgram and Kanger inched down half-a-sen each to 5.5 sen and 17.7 sen, respectively.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index was 44.08 points higher at 11,806.41, the FBMT 100 Index bagged 42.54 points to 11,557.55, and the FBM Emas Shariah Index earned 50.85 points to 13,546.43.

The FBM 70 soared 105.6 points to 15,436.56 and the FBM ACE advanced 63.66 points to 10,710.82.

Meanwhile, the Industrial Products and Services Index shed 0.39 of-a-point to 175.13, the Plantation Index rose 40.8 points to 7,397.52 and the Financial Services Index earned 31.67 points to 14,660.06. — Bernama