BURSA Malaysia remained in positive territory at mid-morning, backed by global economic optimism over massive initiatives to combat the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic undertaken by governments worldwide.
At 12.30pm, the key index FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose by 2.83% or 35.73 points to 1,295.66 compared with yesterday’s close of 1,259.88.
It traded in the range of 1,271.34 to 1,296.17 in the morning session.
On the broader market, gainers outpaced losers 595 to 171, while 217 counters were unchanged, 1,035 not traded and 18 others suspended.
Turnover amounted to 1.60 billion shares worth RM918.59 mil.
An analyst said that investors are bargain hunting for small- and medium-cap stocks as well as selected blue-chip stocks which had reached a low level due to the heavy sell-offs recently.
“However, the rally might be short lived as regional markets are showing a bearish trend,” she said.
Among the heavyweights, banking counters led the gainers as Public Bank added RM1.24 to RM12.14, Hong Leong rose RM1.42 to RM14.12, Maybank was up 22 sen to RM7.34, CIMB garnered 15 sen to RM3.44 and RHB was 22 sen higher to RM4.94.
Altogether, these counters contributed positively to the CI, which rose by 23.04 points.
Of the actives, oil and gas-related counters took the lead as Sapura Energy and Perdana inched up half-a-sen to 7.5 sen and 12.5 sen, respectively, while Hibiscus increased two sen to 30.5 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index surged 242.14 points to 8,743.80, the FBM 70 gained 262.73 points to 9,615.64 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index garnered 162.31 points to 9,490.56.
The FBMT 100 Index increased by 239.43 points to 8,697.55 and the FBM Ace rose 122.54 points to 3,474.48.
Sector-wise, the Industrial Products and Services Index added 1.61 points to 96.74, the Plantation Index upticked 6.60 points to 5,737.30 and the Financial Services Index was 600.26 points better at 11,961.85. — March 24, 2020, Bernama
