KUALA LUMPUR, July 4 — Bursa Malaysia ended higher today as concerns about the impact of Britain’s vote to exit the European Union (Brexit) abated, dealers said.

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) went up 8.62 points or 0.52 per cent to 1,654.84, from Friday’s close of 1,646.22.

The key index opened 3.12 points higher at 1,649.34, moved within a 9.77-point range and hit its intraday peak of 1,657.77 in the first session.

Market breadth, however, was negative with losers outpacing gainers by 363 to 338 with 335 counters unchanged, 678 counters untraded and 20 others suspended.

Total volume shrank to 1.01 billion shares worth RM1.22 billion from 1.13 billion shares worth RM1.13 billion on Friday.

A dealer said worries on how Brexit would negatively impact the local market had waned.

“Britain’s exit referendum effects seem have eased and the upbeat overnight performance on Wall Street on Friday and firmer crude oil prices in Asian trading have attracted buyers,” he said.

Elsewhere, regional stocks also rose on expectations that global central banks are likely to provide more stimulus to offset the impact from Brexit.

Japan’s Nikkei index ended 0.60 per cent higher to 15,775.80, South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.40 per cent to 1,995.30 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng surged 1.27 per cent to 21,059.20.

Back home, leading movers were telecommunications counters, with Maxis gaining 15 sen to RM6.10 and Axiata perked nine sen to RM5.60.

Meanwhile, CIMB advanced nine sen to RM4.40, BAT chalked up RM1.50 to  RM54.00 while top-weighted Maybank was three sen higher at RM8.23.

Among actives, Borneo Oil and Vivocom were both flat at 16 sen and 23 sen, respectively, Trive fell half-a-sen to 7.5 sen, Sanichi rose three sen to 16 sen, while AirAsia-X gained 1.5 sen to 39.5 sen.

On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index rose 44.72 points to 11,530.54, FBMT100 Index surged 46.18 points to 11,239.61 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index increased 40.56 points to 12,095.54.

The FBM 70 added 7.87 points to 12,954.47, but the FBM Ace lost 29.23 points to 5,124.12.

Sector-wise, the Industrial Index advanced 14.56 points to 3,110.82, Finance Index soared 64.50 points to 14,298.50 and the Plantation Index climbed 17.32 points to 7,591.72.

Main Market turnover contracted to 651.64 million shares worth RM1.15 billion from Friday’s 876.00 million shares worth RM1.09 billion .

The ACE Market volume expanded to 192.26 million units valued at RM33.26 million from 153.01 million units valued at RM23.39 million.

Warrants rose to 161.27 million shares worth RM32.60 million from 97.33 million shares worth RM12.25 million.

Consumer products accounted for 38.24 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (98.64 million), construction (50.18 million), trade and services (290.95 million), technology (65.01 million), infrastructure (4.71 million), SPAC (8.08 million), finance (44.68 million), hotels (380,600), properties (34.52 million), plantations (8.60 million), mining (10,000), REITs (7.60 million) and closed/fund (3,000). — Bernama