KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 18 — Bursa Malaysia closed at its intraday high today as financial counters jumped at the eleventh hour, pushing the index to close at its highest so far this week.
At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 1.4 per cent or 22.16 points to close at 1,599.11 compared with Tuesday’s close of 1,576.95.
The benchmark index, which opened at 1,578.60, thereafter hit a low of 1,570.90 in the morning session before staging a recovery.
Despite the rally, market breadth was almost even with gainers slightly outpacing losers 423 to 417, while 412 counters were unchanged, 753 untraded and 15 others suspended.
Turnover increased to 2.50 billion shares worth RM2.02 billion from 2.34 billion shares valued at RM1.99 billion yesterday.
An analyst said the gains in blue chip counters especially financial services were due to the recent revival of several key projects in particular Bandar Malaysia, which has increased investors confidence in the local market.
“Banking counters holds 30 per cent of the FBM KLCI and the gains in these counters have drastically pushed the composite index (CI) points higher,” she said.
Public Bank led the heavyweight financial counters, surging 56 sen to RM19.56, followed by Hong Leong Bank which rose 40 sen to RM17.50, CIMB added 11 sen to RM5.33 and Maybank gained nine sen to RM8.64.
These stocks contributed 9.06 points to the gains in the FBM KLCI.
She also said in addition to the renewed interest, investors were also eyeing undervalued blue chips and set their interest on these stocks during the window-dressing period.
“As we can see IHH gained 48 sen to close at RM5.93 today after the shares dropped to the lowest at RM5.24 on Nov 14. This showed an increase of 13 per cent,” she said.
The local bourse had been on a downtrend and reached a level that would attract more foreign investors during the window-dressing period.
“Until year-end, heavyweight counters, namely government-linked companies (GLCs) will be highly favoured. This is in line with the recent disposal of government holdings in equities which has caught the eyes of foreign investors to increase their equity interest in GLCs,” she said.
Of the actives, Ekovest lost 1.5 sen to 84.5 sen, Foundpac gave up 6.5 sen to 72.5 sen and KNM declined 1.5 sen to 31.5 sen.
Among the other top gainers, F&N rose RM1.46 to RM34.80 while Heineken rose 50 sen to RM27.00.
The FBM Emas Index put on 126.14 points to 11,355.50, the FBM Emas Shariah Index increased 97.10 points to 11,979.82, and the FBMT 100 Index advanced 128.79 points to 11,155.94.
Meanwhile, the FBM Ace fell 55.69 points to 4,998.38 but the FBM 70 gained 57.13 points to 14,132.43.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index surged 258.97 points to 15,536.25, the Plantation Index perked up 15.71 points to 7,558.28, while the Industrial Products and Services Index added 0.95 of-a-point to 153.42.
Main Market volume marginally improved to 1.66 billion shares worth RM1.84 billion compared with 1.58 billion shares valued at RM1.86 billion on Tuesday.
Warrants turnover dropped to 315.89 million units valued at RM56.24 million from 335.14 million units worth RM60.58 million yesterday.
Meanwhile, volume on the ACE Market advanced to 518.35 million shares worth RM123.72 million compared with 423.02 million shares valued at RM126.60 million previously.
Consumer products and services accounted for 190.91 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (259.69 million), construction (228.48 million), technology (112.45 million), SPAC (nil), financial services (42.39 million), property (275.37 million), plantations (93.77 million), REITs (9.55 million), closed/fund (nil), energy (333.82 million), healthcare (25.50 million), telecommunications and media (29.70 million), transportation and logistics (31.48 million), and utilities (34.59 million). — Bernama
