KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 3 — Bursa Malaysia ended sharply higher today, boosted by strong gains by telecommunication (telco) heavyweights on market talk on the introduction of 5G wireless telco technology, a dealer said.

A dealer told Bernama that the last-minute buying of index-linked telco stocks bucked the lacklustre trading for most of the day.

At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 21.05 points to close at 1,744.19, after fluctuating between 1,714.82 and 1,744.19 throughout the day.

Of the telco heavyweights, Axiata soared 48 sen to RM6.85, Maxis climbed 53 sen to RM7.20 and Digi rose 10 sen to RM5.50.

A dealer said the market was trading sideways throughout the day amid unfavourable global occurrence such as China’s weak economic growth and the tumbling of Greek shares after reopening following a five-week suspension, and the continuous fall in oil prices.

On the broader market, losers led gainers by 465 to 324, with 333 counters unchanged, 684 untraded and 23 others were suspended.

Total volume advanced to 1.32 billion units valued at RM1.25 billion from 1.68 billion units valued at RM2.01 billion last Friday.

Of the heavyweights, Maybank eased two sen to RM9.18, while Public Bank and Sime Darby was up six sen each to RM19.06 and RM8.78, respectively.

TNB increased four sen to RM12.24 and Petronas Chemicals added eight sen to RM6.49.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index increased 0.79 of-a-point to 11,988.88, the FBMT100 Index rose 103.48 points to 11,672.9 and the FBM Emas Syariah was 165.63 points higher at 12,539.35.

The FBM 70 fell 25.41 points to 12,824.07 and the FBM Ace trimmed 5.65 points to 6,266.73.

On a sectoral basis, the Finance Index fell 5.56 points to 15,464, the Plantation Index eased 5.59 points to 7,406.43 while the Industrial Index edged up 21.3 points to 3,258.21.

Among the losers, United Plantations declined 50 sen to RM27.00, MAHB fell 23 sen to RM5.70, Malaysian Pacific Industries slipped 23 sen to RM7.00 and BAT went down 20 sen to RM67.30.

Among actives, iDimension rose one sen to 14 sen, ES Ceramics inched up half-a-sen to 35.5 sen and APFT was flat at 22.5 sen.

Main Market volume declined to 785.08 million shares worth RM1.12 billion against last Friday’s 987.76 million units worth RM1.86 billion.

Turnover on the ACE Market decreased to 316.77 million units valued at RM73.03 million from 468.05 million shares valued at RM93.63 million previously.

Warrants trimmed to 212.27 million shares worth RM53.05 million from 219.25 million units worth RM56.07 million last Friday.

Consumer products accounted for 117.64 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (158.05 million), construction (73.19 million), trade and services (251.34 million), technology (83.21 million), infrastructure (12.46 million), SPAC (1.53 million), finance (25.53 million), hotels (833,900), properties (45.98 million), plantations (9.94 million), mining (32,000), REITs (5.35 million), and closed/fund (10,300). — Bernama