KUALA LUMPUR, July 9 — Shares on Bursa Malaysia remained higher at today’s close, driven by domestic buying for selected heavyweights, especially in the finance and telecommunication sectors.

At 5 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI finished at 1,701.54, up 5.71 points, after moving between 1,685.03 and 1,704.88 throughout the day.

A dealer said the local bourse rebounded after opening lower.

“Earlier, local stocks were trading downwards following some selling of the equities, but from mid-morning onwards, there was a mild buying that lifted the market.

“This trend was in sync with most of the Asian bourses, tracking the better performance in China,” the dealer said.

He said Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index increased 876.23 points to 24,392.79, Japan’s Nikkei 225 was 117.86 points higher at 19,855.50, but Singapore’s STI Index fell 12.66 points to 3,272.31.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index gained 64.13 points to 11,706.01, the FBMT100 Index added 57.80 points to 11,402.82, and the FBM Emas Syariah was 80.34 points better at 12,200.43.

The FBM 70 perked 136.22 points to 12,584.76 and the FBM Ace expanded 91.27 points to 6,082.56.

On a sectoral basis, the Finance Index rose 43.65 points to 15,24, the Plantation Index inched up 52.60 points to 7,393.95 and the Industrial Index was 5.63 points better at 3,141.73.

Market breadth was positive with gainers beating losers by 556 to 270, with 289 counters unchanged, 678 untraded and 14 others suspended.

Total volume fell to 1.82 billion units valued at RM1.83 billion from1.99 billion units valued at RM2.25 billion yesterday.

 Of the heavyweights, Maybank rose four sen to RM9.16, Maxis advanced 12 sen to RM6.45, while Public Bank declined 18 sen to RM18.50 and TNB eased four sen to RM12.56.

Among actives, AirAsia added one sen to RM1.31, KNM improved 4.5 sen to 61 sen, Frontken inched up half-a-sen to 25.5 sen, and Multi Sports was flat at 9.5 sen.

Main Market volume fell to 1.11 million shares worth RM1.59 billion from yesterday’s 1.18 billion shares worth RM2.02 billion.

Turnover on the ACE Market contracted to 219.70 million worth RM75.76 million against 339.68 million units valued at RM76.74 million.

Warrants increased to 487.06 million shares worth RM158.76 million versus 515.68 million shares worth RM152.52 million.

Consumer products accounted for 222.16 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (170.13 million), construction (77.42 million), trade and services (454.61 million), technology (44.85 million), infrastructure (20.28 million), SPAC (8.76 million), finance (38.48 million), hotels (649,200), properties (49.09 million), plantations (12.06 million), mining (26,400), REITs (11.16 million), and closed/fund (9,500).— Bernama