Positive sentiment lifts FBM KLCI
Published on: Saturday, January 18, 2020
By: Bernama
File photo from Bernama.
Kuala Lumpur: Bursa Malaysia closed firmer for the third consecutive day Friday, tracking the performance of its regional peers, as positive market sentiment fuelled investors’ appetite for riskier assets.At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 7.93 points to an intraday high of 1,595.81 compared with 1,587.88 at Thursday’s close.
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Despite a lower opening of 1,586.96 in early trade, the key index moved in positive territory most of the time backed by buying support, especially in the telecommunication stocks.
Axiata lifted the composite index by 3.885 points by rising 24 sen to RM4.60 on news that Telenor ASA had revived talks with Khazanah Nasional Bhd on several potential deals, including buying part of the sovereign wealth fund’s stake in the home-grown telco giant.
Meanwhile, Digi and Maxis contributed a combined 2.48 points.
The overall market breadth on Bursa was bullish with gainers outpacing losers 468 to 388, while 427 counters remained unchanged, 684 were untraded and 24 others were suspended.
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Turnover increased to 2.84 billion shares worth RM2.56 billion versus Thursday’s 2.59 billion shares worth RM1.91 billion.
A dealer said market players cheered the de-escalation of the trade war between the United States (US) and China. It sent global stocks on a rally, with all three US benchmark indices hitting new all-time highs on Thursday.
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She said heavyweight counters continued to drive the FBM KLCI’s upward momentum as sentiment improved.
“Uptrend is in sight backed by the positive US-China ‘phase one’ trade agreement signed on Wednesday. However, it will not be for long. A local catalyst is needed to push the index further,” she told Bernama.
Of the other heavyweights, Maybank added one sen to RM8.62 and Public Bank rose four sen to RM19.60, while Tenaga was flat at RM12.90.
Petronas Chemicals trimmed three sen to RM7.03 and CIMB slipped one sen to RM5.16.
Among the actives, Vortex eased 1.5 sen to 10.5 sen, Sapura Energy inched down half-a-sen to 26.5 sen, Alam Maritim gained one sen to 16.5 sen and Perdana Petroleum rose 6.5 sen to 49.5 sen.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index was 47.85 points higher at 11,363.55, the FBM Emas Shariah Index chalked up 71.72 points to 12,019.22, the FBMT 100 Index advanced 47.74 points to 11,152.73, and the FBM 70 bagged 29.18 points to 14,209.89.
However, the FBM ACE fell 20.91 points to 5,565.12.
Sector-wise, the Industrial Products and Services Index inched down 0.13 point to 153.88, but the Financial Services Index increased 17.59 points to 15,418.24 and the Plantation Index improved 16.01 points to 7,535.43.
Main Market volume increased to 1.91 billion shares worth RM2.03 billion compared with 1.71 billion shares worth RM1.69 billion on Thursday.
Warrants turnover advanced to 314.94 million units worth RM61.07 million from Thursday’s 290.05 million units worth RM47.7 million.
Volume on the ACE Market widened to 617.59 million shares worth RM171.03 million from 607.22 million shares worth RM176.44 million on Thursday.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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