KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia continued to strengthen at mid-afternoon today amid large gains in rubber-based manufacturers, as well as mid-sized, small Islamic and conventional cap counters.
At 3 pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) gained 18.24 points to 1,491.49 against 1,473.25 at Friday’s close.
Top Glove, Hartalega, Rubberex Corp, Kossan Rubber Industries, Adventa, as well as Supermax Corporation made the top gainers list as they made substantial inroads into the healthcare sector amid the Covid-19 pandemic resulting from a spike in demand for rubber gloves.
However, the overall market breadth was negative with decliners outpacing gainers 562 to 472, while 325 counters were unchanged, 509 untraded and 23 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 6.58 billion units worth RM4.47 bil.
OANDA Asia Pacific senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley said the pan-Asia Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) has uniformly put-performed across the region except for Japan.
“That hints that the global recovery trade and a rebound in post-Covid-19 economic activity in the region remain intact,” he said in a note, adding that China released its official manufacturing and non-manufacturing PMIs yesterday, although manufacturing slightly underperformed at 50.6 but remained expansionary.
Of the heavyweights, Tenaga bagged 60 sen to RM11.86, IHH Healthcare rose 13 sen to RM5.56 and Hartalega earned 84 sen to RM13.38.
Meanwhile, Maybank lost four sen to RM7.46 and Public Bank eased 10 sen to RM14.56.
Among actives, K-One improved 11.5 sen to 43.5 sen, LKL International added 25 sen to 80.5 sen, BCM Alliance rose 8.5 sen to 31 sen, Careplus garnered 41 sen to RM1.81 and HLT Global rose 30 sen to 88.5 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index improved 95.52 points to 10,559.37, the FBMT 100 Index put on 98.58 points to 10,411.79, the FBM Emas Shariah Index soared 224.58 points to 12,249.8, the FBM 70 chalked up 7.95 points to 13,203.15, and the FBM ACE jumped 279.17 points to 5,898.98.
Sector-wise, the Industrial Products and Services Index added 0.55 point to 130.61, while the Financial Services Index decreased 63.51 points to 12,419.23 and the Plantation Index eased 17.21 points to 6,767.96. – June 1, 2020, Bernama
