KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 17 ― Bursa Malaysia moved into positive territory at mid-morning on bargain-hunting with buying support seen in heavyweights led by healthcare and utilities sectors, dealers said.

At 11am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 5.27 points to 1,489.91 compared with 1,484.64 at yesterday’s close. The index opened 0.79 points better at 1,485.43.

However, on the broader market, losers outpaced gainers 344 to 282, while 365 counters were unchanged, 1,335 untraded and 43 others suspended.

Turnover stood at 952.86 million units valued at RM603.36 million.

ActivTrades trader Anderson Alves said Asian equities are expected to trade mixed on Friday as liquidity is drying up with the year-end holidays drawing closer.

He said super Thursday prompted some choppy price action amid major central bank decisions, with highlights being the Bank of England and European Central Bank, with the former hiking rates by 15 basis points.

“Attention now turns to the Bank of Japan's monetary policy decision, with traders focusing on whether the central bank will extend its pandemic relief, which is set to expire in March.

“Price action in equity markets will be mainly driven by year-end technical flows ahead of the holiday season and Quadruple Witching on Friday. This trend is expected to continue into the final weeks of the year,” he added.

Among heavyweights, Public Bank and Petronas Chemicals eased one sen each to RM4.02 and RM8.67, respectively, IHH Healthcare gained five sen to RM6.55, Tenaga rose nine sen to RM9.33, while Maybank and CIMB were flat at RM8.11 and RM5.23, respectively.

Of the actives, ATA IMS and Kejututeraan Asastera slid half-a-sen each to 67.5 sen and 25 sen, respective, while Hwa Tai and Careplus rose 8.5 sen each to 75.5 sen and RM1.00, respectively, and DGB Asia was flat at three sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index was 22.91 points lower at 10,852.58, the FBMT 100 Index perked 24.99 points to 10,547.82, and the FBM Emas Shariah Index increased 40.76 points to 11,677.52.

The FBM 70 fell 16.17 points to 13,943.89 and the FBM ACE declined 13.98 points to 6,264.13.

Sector-wise, the Industrial Products and Services Index edged up 0.18 of-a-point to 194.91, the Plantation Index bagged 3.61 points to 6,362.77 but the Financial Services Index lost 9.45 points to 15,212.14. ― Bernama