BURSA Malaysia bucked the trend in most of its regional peers to stay higher at midday on persistent buying in selected heavyweights.
At 12.30pm, the key FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) added 4.70 points, or 0.36% to 1,327.36 from 1,322.66 at Wednesday’s close.
The key index opened 2.04 points lower at 1,320.62 at 9am and moved between 1,316.94 and 1,332.61 during the morning session.
Market breadth stayed positive with gainers outpacing losers 436 to 233, while 316 counters were unchanged, 936 untraded and 19 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 1.58 billion shares worth RM923.10 mil.
Regionally, Japan’s Nikkei declined 0.72% to 17,935.48, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng eased 0.09% to 23,065.02 and Singapore’s Straits Times Index gave up 0.93% to 2,417.57.
Back home, the buying support in heavyweights was led by Sime Darby Plantation which added eight sen to RM4.82, followed by IOI Corp which bagged seven sen to RM3.96.
Meanwhile, Public Bank advanced 10 sen to RM15.78, Press Metal Aluminium rose nine sen to RM3.15 and Petronas Gas was 18 sen higher at RM15.14.
Minetech Resources continued to lead the list of most actively traded counters, gaining one sen to 15 sen; while Armada ticked up half-a sen to 14 sen, Velesto perked one sen to 13 sen, JAKS went up three sen to 82 sen and Sanichi was unchanged at 4.5 sen.
Top gainer KESM improved 19 sen to RM6.69 while top loser Carlsberg dropped 46 sen to RM24.30.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index accumulated 42.66 points to 9,128.84, the FBM Emas Shariah Index strengthened 53.76 points to 9,977.15 while the FBMT 100 Index climbed 39.27 points to 9.048.14.
The FBM 70 was 75.81 points better at 10,587.02 and the FBM Ace rose 26.04 points to 3,919.22.
Sector-wise, the Industrial Products and Services Index edged up 0.55 of-a-point to 104.09, the Financial Services Index increased 17.59 points to 12,062.04 and the Plantation Index was 44.26 points higher at 6,151.54. — April 2, 2020, Bernama
