KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 17 — Last minute buying in heavyweight and finance counters lifted Bursa Malaysia to end at an intra-day high today, despite weaker sentiment in the regional markets, dealers said.

At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI finished at 1,828.63, up 2.60 points from yesterday’s close of 1,826.03. It opened 1.48 points lower at 1,824.55.

The market barometer moved to a low of 1,821.54 throughout the day.

Overall market breadth, however, was bearish as losers outnumbered gainers 678 to 321, while 390 counters were unchanged, 444 untraded and 22 others suspended.

Turnover slipped to 4.97 billion units valued at RM2.79 billion from Tuesday’s 6.53 billion units valued at RM3.37 billion.

Hong Leong Bank topped the gainers list, rising 58 sen to RM17.80, contributing 2.23 points to the composite index.

A dealer said that most of Asian bourses were hurt by a minor decline in the overnight Wall Street which spurred mild selling pressure.

He said that the retreat in oil and commodity prices also affected the selected resource and commodity-related counters across the region.

The FBM Emas Index added 3.69 points to 13,191.73, the FBMT 100 Index went up 12.55 points to 12,848.37, but the FBM Emas Shariah Index 21.92 points was weaker at 13,618.51.

The FBM 70 dipped 3.14 points to 16,420.29 but the FBM Ace improved 25.42 points to 6,806.18.

Sector-wise, the Finance Index gained 55.40 points to 17,246.20, the Industrial Index shed 18.07 points to 3,338.35 and the Plantation Index eased 20.45 points to 8,075.23.

Among other heavyweights, Maybank advanced three sen to RM9.88, Public Bank was flat at RM20.88, while TNB declined six sen to RM15.82, and Petronas Chemicals and CIMB Group erased two sen each to RM8.17 and RM6.77, respectively.

Of the actives, NETX earned half-a-sen to five sen, Xinghe advanced one sen to seven sen, while Sumatec shed two sen to 10 sen and Perisai Petroleum decreased 1.5 sen to 7.5 sen.

Main Market volume slipped to 2.87 billion units worth RM2.55 billion from 4.89 billion units worth RM3.14 billion on Monday.

Volume on the ACE Market improved to 1.67 billion shares valued at RM173.29 million from yesterday’s 1.12 billion shares valued at RM148.64 million.

Warrants’ volume decreased to 425.21 million units worth RM67.54 million from 510.20 million units worth RM80.60 million.

Consumer products accounted for 195.46 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (639.44 million), construction (94.99 million), trade and services (1.63 billion), technology (92.34 million), infrastructure (5.37 million), SPAC (3.26 million), finance (55.42 million), hotels (630,000), properties (101.76 million), plantations (46.67 million), mining (670,800), REITs (10.24 million), and closed/fund (28,000). — Bernama