Bursa Malaysia Opens Higher, Tracks Wall Street Overnight Rebound
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 20 (Bernama) -- Bursa Malaysia opened higher on Thursday, in line with positive regional markets, tracking Wall Street’s overnight rebound.
At 9.04 am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 4.60 points to 1,735.92, from Wednesday’s close of 1,731.32.
The benchmark index opened 0.79 of a point higher at 1,732.11.
Market breadth was positive, with gainers outnumbering losers 267 to 139, while 268 counters were unchanged, 2,198 untraded, and 16 suspended.
Turnover stood at 223.02 million shares valued at RM141.52 million.
Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd said in a note today that Wall Street rebounded as the US Treasury snapped up bonds to ease escalating yields, which have been weighing on global financial markets of late.
With this intervention, it said the US 10-year yield eased to 4.65 per cent.
“Looking ahead, we believe global markets would still be influenced by the high bond yields, hence we expect the index to trend within the 1,725-1,735 range today,” it said.
Regionally, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index edged up 1.11 per cent to 25,779.08, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.13 per cent to 66,061.83, South Korea’s KOSPI Composite Index surged 4.99 per cent to 6,794.15, but Singapore’s Straits Times Index fell 0.61 per cent to 5,659.52.
Among the heavyweights, Maybank was down by two sen to RM10.62, Public Bank was one sen lower at RM5.14, while CIMB Group gained three sen to RM7.94 and IHH Healthcare added four sen to RM8.34, but Tenaga Nasional was flat at RM14.40.
On the most active list, CBH Engineering Holding climbed 4.5 sen to 83.5 sen, Capital A and SMRT Holdings were half a sen higher at 34.5 sen and 23 sen, respectively, while TWL Holdings stood at 2.5 sen and JCY International inched up one sen to 52.5 sen.
Among top gainers, Malaysian Pacific Industries surged 56 sen to RM46.66, YTL Power International gained 24 sen to RM5.12, Allianz Malaysia put on 18 sen to RM22.28, Hong Leong Bank grew 14 sen to RM22.82, and MISC garnered 11 sen to RM8.17.
As for the top losers, Nestle erased RM1 to RM103, Ranhill Utilities reduced 41 sen to RM2.36, Paragon Union gave up 11 sen to RM1.54, while BM Greentech and Gas Malaysia slid eight sen each to RM1.79 and RM5.05, respectively.
Among the broader indices, the FBM 70 Index improved by 33.72 points to 18,167.99, the FBM Emas Shariah Index went up by 24.10 points to 12,659.23, and the FBM Emas Index strengthened by 31.06 points to 12,835.80.
The FBM Top 100 Index rose 31.00 points to 12,650.87, and the FBM ACE Index increased 32.79 points to 5,335.51.
By sector, the Plantation Index jumped 26.29 points to 9,307.44, and the Financial Services Index edged up 7.30 points to 20,299.65, but the Industrial Products and Services Index inched down 0.21 of a point to 189.34, and the Energy Index was lower by 1.66 points to 775.81.
-- BERNAMA