KUALA LUMPUR, March 26 — The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) ended higher today on positive external economic outlook after fluctuating between positive and negative territories during the day.
The benchmark index closed 0.79 of-a-point higher at 1,649.94 compared with Monday’s close of 1,649.15.
The benchmark index opened at 1,647.82, 1.33 points lower, and moved between 1,648.06 and 1,654.26 throughout the day.
However, on the scoreboard, market breadth was negative with decliners outnumbering gainers 373 to 367, while 450 counters remained unchanged, 720 were untraded and 48 others were suspended.
Volume eased to 2.47 billion units worth RM1.76 billion compared with 2.78 billion units worth RM1.73 billion on Monday.
OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley said Asia appeared to be letting out a collective sigh of relief this morning as European and North American stocks stabilised in the overnight session.
He said Asian markets could regain some of yesterday’s losses today after a calm Wall Street session.
“Confidence remains fragile though with markets susceptible to headline trading on a quiet data day, US Consumer Confidence this evening being the highlight,” he said.
Of the heavyweights, Maybank and and PChem rose two sen each to RM9.25 and RM9.05, respectively.
CIMB and Tenaga were flat at RM5.12 and RM12.76, respectively, while PBBank declined two sen to RM23.74.
Among actives, Bumi Armada and Sapura Energy declined one sen each to 18.5 sen and 33.5 sen, respectively, while Dynaciate (formerly Tatt Giap) was flat at nine sen.
MyEG rose seven sen to RM1.40 sen and Naim Holdings was 14 sen higher at RM1.17.
The FBM Emas Index rose 11.84 points to 11,575.35, the FBMT 100 improved 11.66 points to 11,431.79 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index increased 19.65 points to 11,670.73.
The FBM Ace Index expanded 35.92 points to 4,779.21 and the FBM 70 was 39.43 points higher at 14,164.3.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services index increased 14.01 points to 17,008.79, the Industrial Products and Services Index was 0.28 of-a-point better at 167.88 and the Plantation Index was 13.31 points higher at 7,199.65.
Main Market volume narrowed to 1.88 billion shares worth RM1.63 billion versus 1.93 billion shares worth RM1.56 billion on Monday.
Warrants declined to 363.7 million units valued at RM81.14 million compared with 477.37 million units valued at RM98.85 million.
Volume on the ACE Market fell to 226.02 million shares worth RM54.6 million from 379.88 million shares worth RM71.33 million.
Consumer products and services accounted for 162.42 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (333.63 million), construction (131.55 million), technology (140.98 million), SPAC (nil), financial services (52.5 million), property (101.3 million), plantation (13.85 million), REITs (22.95 million), closed/fund (25,400), energy (818.29 million), healthcare (23.05 million), telecommunications and media (38.73 million), transportation and logistics (23.85 million), and utilities (19.36 million). — Bernama
