KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 14 — Bursa Malaysia opened higher today, tracking the gains of regional peers amid positive sentiment following a truce in US-China year-long trade war last Friday.
The US suspended a tariff escalation due this week on US$250 billion (RM1.05 trillion) of Chinese exports set for US shores as part of a “phase one” trade accord.
At 9.05am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 8.05 points to 1,564.89 from last Friday’s 1,556.84.
The benchmark index opened 5.81 points higher at 1,562.65.
On the broader market, gainers outpaced losers 243 to 64, while 156 counters were unchanged, 1,535 untraded and 42 others suspended.
Turnover amounted to 174.62 million shares worth RM914.66 million.
Malacca Securities Sdn Bhd said it expected more immediate upsides among Malaysian equities at the start of the week amid progress in the US-China trade dispute that will also improve the near term market sentiments.
“Although the Budget 2020 announcement was seen as largely neutral for corporates, there were no unwanted surprises and that would also help to provide some measure of stability to equities, in our view,” it said in a research note today.
The research firm said it also expected the broader market shares and the lower liners to also firm- up further with the improved market sentiments that could prompt further near term trading activities.
Among heavyweights, Maybank and Tenaga gained six sen to RM8.50 and RM13.94 respectively, Public Bank rose 10 sen to RM19.18, Petronas Chemicals edged up one sen to RM7.24 while IHH Healthcare added three to RM5.68.
Of the most actives, Bumi Armada added one sen to 39 sen, debutant AME Elite gained three sen to RM1.33, Ekovest rose 2.5 sen to 82.5 sen while NetX Holdings was flat at two sen.
The FBM Emas Index increased 62.81 points to 11,140.62, the FBMT 100 Index gained 60.92 points to 10,956.36 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index added 60.97 points to 11,777.34.
The FBM 70 surged 96.60 points to 14,040 and the FBM Ace improved 23.10 points to 4,642.23.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index increased 76.36 points to 15,066.69, the Plantation Index rose 22.10 points to 6,562.99 while the Industrial Products & Services Index was 0.27 of-a-point better at 150.70. — Bernama
