KUALA LUMPUR: Oil and gas-related stocks surged on higher oil prices, lifting Bursa Malaysia to close above the 1,400 key level today.
At 5 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) ended 6.19 points higher at 1,403.44 on Friday, compared to 1,397.25 at yesterday’s close.
The index opened 6.22 points higher at 1,403.47 and moved between 1,398.71 and 1,408.19 throughout the session.
Market breadth was positive as gainers trounced losers 592 to 316, while 387 counters were unchanged, 598 untraded and 35 others suspended.
Turnover, which remained high at above the nine-billion level, increased to 9.23 billion units worth RM3.87 bil from 7.01 billion units worth RM4.04 bil yesterday.
On Wednesday, Bursa Malaysia’s volume reached its all-time high of 9.59 billion units worth RM5.1 bil versus the previous all-time high of 7.67 million units recorded on Aug 20, 2014.
AxiCorp chief market strategist Stephen Innes said the bounce in oil prices is providing excellent optics for FBM KLCI oil constituents.
“I think we turned the corner on oil prices earlier this week.
“And now prices are playing catch up due to global producers’ total compliance and as the market was caught flat-footed by the surge in private vehicle preference as lockdown is getting removed globally,” he added.
In addition, the International Energy Agency (IEA), in its monthly oil market report, said oil supply is set to fall by 12 million barrels per day in May as OPEC+ countries are seeing compliance with their output quotas.
The IEA also sees a 6.7 million barrels per day non-OPEC production decline in March-June, with the US and Canada leading the way.
He said the market also managed to stay in positive territory despite the wobble on China retail sales, which fell 7.5%, weaker than the consensus projection of -6%.
However, China’s industrial output managed to recover for the first time since the Covid-19 outbreak, growing at 3.9% in April year-on-year.
Among heavyweights, PetChem went up 16 sen to RM5.56, MISC rose 20 sen to RM8.00, Dialog was 11 sen better at RM3.44 and Petronas Gas improved 24 sen to RM15.88.
CIMB and Sime Darby put on five sen each to RM3.46 and RM1.95 respectively.
As for active counters, KNM inched up three sen to 18 sen, Hibiscus Petroleum rose 6.5 sen to 58 sen, while Sapura Energy and Velesto added half-a-sen each to nine sen and 14 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index expanded 60.51 points to 9,868.06, the FBMT 100 Index gained 54.49 points to 9,716.11, the FBM Emas Shariah Index added 81.70 points to 11,134.05, the FBM ACE climbed 83.59 points to 5,390.10 and the FBM 70 jumped 115.08 points to 11,991.41.
Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index bagged 52.06 points to 12,267.21, the Industrial Products and Services Index edged up 1.39 points to 120.88, but the Plantation Index improved 16.73 points to 6,197.16.
Main Market volume rose to 6.92 billion shares worth RM3.44 bil from 4.09 billion shares worth RM3.32 bil yesterday.
Warrants turnover, however, decreased to 417.20 million units valued at RM90.33 mil compared to 484.88 million units valued at RM121.97 mil on Thursday.
Volume on the ACE Market dropped to 1.89 billion shares worth RM339.20 mil versus 2.43 billion shares worth RM603.29 mil previously.
Consumer products and services accounted for 826.09 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (833.68 million), construction (262.54 million), technology (423.87 million), SPAC (nil), financial services (47.70 million), property (190.64 million), plantations (259.15 million), REITs (6.15 million), closed/fund (9,000), energy (3.21 billion), healthcare (70.17 million), telecommunications and media (632.43 million), transportation and logistics (140.67 million), and utilities (23.02 million). – May 15, 2020, Bernama
