KUALA LUMPUR, March 29 ― Bursa Malaysia opened higher today, in tandem with the mostly higher regional peers despite the mixed sentiment on Wall Street overnight, said an analyst.
At 9.15am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) added 2.92 points to 1,533.52 from Wednesday’s close of 1,530.60.
The benchmark index opened 1.51 points higher at 1,532.11.
On the broader market, gainers led decliners 267 to 214 while 373 counters were unchanged, 1,466 untraded and 55 others suspended.
Turnover amounted to 351.37 million units worth RM165.59 million.
In a note today, Malacca Securities Sdn Bhd expects the local market will trade in a rangebound mode today, tracking the mixed overnight performance on Wall Street.
“For sector focus, with the stronger commodities prices such as Brent oil and gold prices, we believe the market could focus on the oil and gas and gold-related sectors.
“The construction and property sectors will be taking the lead in the near term with the revival of infrastructure projects, higher investments in data centres and recovery prospects in the property segment,” it said.
The stockbroking firm also said that other sectors that may have short-term trading ideas include finance, technology and packaging.
Among the heavyweight counters, Maybank and Public Bank were flat at RM9.65 and RM4.21 respectively, CIMB Group added 9.0 sen to RM6.64, while Tenaga Nasional weakened 4.0 sen to RM11.20 and Petronas Chemicals slid 5.0 sen to RM6.74.
Among the actives, MMAG Holdings gained 1.0 sen to 18.5 sen, Ingenieur Gudang, Eduspec Holdings and Destini were all flat at 16.0 sen, 14.0 sen and 3.5 sen respectively, while VS Industry dropped 3.0 sen to 80.5 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index edged up 19.43 points to 11,545.41, and the FBMT 100 Index increased by 19.02 points to 11,191.56, and the FBM Emas Shariah Index gained 8.92 points to 11,622.36.
The FBM 70 Index rose by 17.89 points to 16,166.04 and the FBM ACE Index climbed 19.83 points to 4,862.56.
Sector-wise, the Industrial Products and Services Index shed 0.09 of-a-point to 179.45, the Financial Services Index improved by 36.78 points to 17,218.90, the Plantation Index went up 7.54 points to 7,306.10, and the Energy Index advanced 5.32 points to 948.31.
Bursa Malaysia Bhd and its subsidiaries were closed yesterday in conjunction with Nuzul Al-Quran. ― Bernama
