KUALA LUMPUR, March 5 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia continued yesterday’s upward momentum to open firmer this morning, lifted by gains in blue chips and heavyweights following better market sentiments.
At 9:03am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,830.94, up 4.48 points, after opening 3.99 points higher at 1,830.45.
Gains were mostly seen in finance and banking counters like Maybank, CIMB, Public Bank and Hong Leong Bank as well as plantation stocks such as KLK, Sime Darby and FGV.
HwangDBS Vickers Research said positive sentiments emerged due to favourable external news and this could pave the way for Bursa Malaysia to stage a technical rebound today.
“Essentially, sentiments were lifted by news that the geopolitical conflict in Ukraine remains under control.
“After closing at its intra-day high of 1,826.46 yesterday, the benchmark FBM KLCI is set to recover further by pulling away from the support line of 1,825,” the research house said in a note.
On the scoreboard, the Finance Index rose 46.76 points to 16,472.89, the Industrial Index gained 2.93 points to 3,135.23 and the Plantation Index surged 34.27 points to 8,812.06.
The FBM Emas Index garnered 32.37 points to 12,651.92, the FBMT100 Index advanced 35.96 points to 12,339.51, the FBM 70 perked 62.88 points to 13,876.03 and the FBM Ace jumped 86.36 points to 6,572.69.
Market breadth was positive, with gainers outpacing losers 230 to 24, while 112 counters were unchanged, 1,249 untraded and 14 others were suspended.
Turnover stood at 148.98 million shares worth RM53.67 million.
Among actives, IRIS Corp gained three sen to 61 sen, Metronic inched up half-a-sen to 10.5 sen, while Ingenuity was flat at 11 sen.
As for heavyweights, Maybank rose four sen to RM9.66, CIMB added five sen to RM7.09 and Sime Darby earned one sen to RM9.26.
TNB was flat at RM12.00 but Axiata shed one sen to RM6.57. — Bernama
