Bursa Malaysia Higher At Midday Following Overnight Gains On Wall Street

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 13 (Bernama) -- Bursa Malaysia experienced a positive trend at midday, buoyed by strong gains on Wall Street overnight, while investors await the United States Federal Reserve (Fed) meeting next week. 

At 12.30 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) advanced 7.94 points to 1,646.25 from yesterday’s close of 1,638.31. 

The benchmark index opened 4.32 points better at 1,642.63 and moved between 1,638.44 and 1,647.22 throughout the morning trading session.

Market breadth was positive, with gainers leading losers 631 to 329, with 386 counters unchanged, 1,119 untraded and 27 suspended.

Turnover stood at 1.62 billion units worth RM1.29 billion.

Malacca Securities Sdn Bhd said the rebound in the US is seen to spill over to stocks on the local front, specifically in the tech sector as they are significantly oversold, but the upside may be capped due to the strong ringgit environment, where the earnings may be softer in the upcoming quarters.

Meanwhile, on the flip side, the elevated ringgit tone could help local sectors such as consumer, financial and selected utilities, it added.

“We also favour the construction and building materials counters as we believe the data centre projects may start to materialise into earnings of the construction sector going forward,” Malacca Securities said in a research note today. 

Among other heavyweights, Public Bank advanced three sen to RM4.68, CIMB surged 12 sen to RM8.05, Tenaga Nasional added two sen to RM14.70, IHH Healthcare rose six sen to RM6.71, Maybank and CelcomDigi declined two sen each to RM10.62 and RM3.71, while Hong Leong Bank shed four sen to RM21.16.  

As for the active counters, Velesto gained one sen to 20 sen, MRCB increased two sen to 59.5 sen, YTL Corp jumped 10 sen to RM2.57, while Globetronics and OCR were flat at 55 sen and six sen.     

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index climbed 70.18 points to 12,261.83, the FBM Emas Shariah Index bagged 96.71 points to 12,086.28, and the FBMT 100 Index rose 69.46 points to 11,976.85.

The FBM 70 Index surged 143.60 points to 17,238.15, while the FBM ACE Index increased 28.97 points to 5,062.64. 

By sector, the Financial Services Index shaved 49.71 points to 19,461.94, the Industrial Products and Services Index edged up 1.82 points to 174.80, the Energy Index rose 18.06 points to 865.70 and the Plantation Index ticked up 14.87 points to 7,179.39. 

-- BERNAMA