KUALA LUMPUR, June 7 — Bursa Malaysia closed higher across the board today, buoyed by improved market sentiment as well as on hopes of a rate cut by the United States, dealers said.
In line with the uptrend in regional bourses, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) finished 5.24 points firmer at 1,649.33 from 1,644.09 at 5pm Tuesday.
Bursa Malaysia was closed on Wednesday and yesterday for the Hari Raya Aidilfitri holidays.
The barometer index, which opened 6.84 points better at 1,650.93 this morning, moved between 1,646.8 and 1,651.99 throughout the session.
It stayed in the positive territory thanks to persistent buying in index-linked counters, led by Maxis, Axiata and IHH Healthcare, which contributed a combined 4.46 points to the key index.
Maxis soared 12 sen to RM5.56, Axiata chalked up 10 sen to RM4.66, while IHH Healthcare bagged eight sen to RM5.51.
Market breadth was bullish with gainers thumping losers 487 to 305, while 349 counters were unchanged, 748 untraded and 27 others suspended.
Turnover increased to 1.55 billion units worth RM1.52 billion from 1.00 billion units valued at RM1.01 billion recorded at 12.30pm Tuesday.
JF Apex Securities head of research Lee Chung Cheng said market players were on a bargain hunting mode following Tuesday’s decline and were also taking cue from the strong Dow Jones Industrial Average performance overnight on the Wall Street.
“Trading was mainly influenced by external factors, including the optimism that the US and Mexico can work out a deal before costly tariffs kick in next week, strong Dow Jones, and expectations of an interest rate cut by US Federal Reserve (Fed).
“These lifted sentiment in the market,” he told Bernama.
The Dow Jones rebounded close to 1,000 points in the last three trading sessions after Fed Chairman Jerome H. Powell said the central bank was prepared to act as appropriate to sustain economic expansion if President Donald Trump’s trade war weakened the economy.
Back home, among other heavyweights, Maybank rose two sen to RM8.99, Petronas Chemicals put on 12 sen to RM8.40, while Public Bank was flat at RM23.42.
Tenaga and CIMB shed four sen each to RM12.78 and RM5.28.
Of the actively-traded stocks, Metronic and Bumi Armada inched up half-a-sen each to 7.5 sen and 20.5 sen, Ekovest added 1.5 sen to 79 sen, but both Pegasus Heights and Lambo slipped half-a-sen each to one sen and 5.5 sen.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index was 42.06 points higher at 11,580.65, the FBMT 100 increased 37.72 points to 11,440.42, the FBM Emas Shariah Index earned 65.14 points to 11,790.44, the FBM 70 improved 52.54 points to 14,227.32, and the FBM Ace Index climbed 32.15 points to 4,264.14.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index rose 12.29 points to 16,828.86, the Industrial Products and Services Index added 1.61 points to 160.54 and the Plantation Index bagged 18.32 points to 6,873.47.
Main Market volume increased to 1.21 billion shares valued at RM1.48 billion from 619.94 million shares worth RM935.79 million during the half-day trading on Tuesday.
Warrants turnover shrank to 154.56 million units valued at RM18.57 million from 246.65 million units worth RM55.58 million.
Volume on the ACE Market improved slightly to 178.52 million shares valued at RM24.96 million from 135.7 million shares worth RM14.56 million.
Consumer products and services accounted for 203.59 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (256.16 million), construction (186.72 million), technology (42.35 million), SPAC (nil), financial services (47.76 million), property (176.04 million), plantation (18.43 million), REITs (7.99 million), closed/fund (nil), energy (207.98 million), healthcare (14.53 million), telecommunications and media (24.05 million), transportation and logistics (14.83 billion), and utilities (13.62 million). — Bernama
