KUALA LUMPUR – Bursa Malaysia continued its uptrend by opening higher today in tandem with its regional peers, taking cue from a strong overnight Wall Street performance amid positive corporate earnings, said an analyst.
At 9.05am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) increased 2.89 points to 1,585.55 from yesterday’s close of 1,582.66.
The benchmark index opened 0.92 of-a-point better at 1,583.58.
On the broader market, gainers led losers 182 to 167, while 302 counters were unchanged, 1,686 untraded and 74 others suspended.
Turnover amounted to 166.42 million units worth RM105.10 million.
Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd equity research vice-president Thong Pak Leng said Wall Street continued with its uptrend boosted by solid corporate earnings reports, with Tesla being the day’s “hero” after it cleared the first hurdle for full self-driving technologies in China.
Nonetheless, rotational plays among the megatech stocks were evident, with McDonald’s, Coke and Amazon earnings still to come.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 146 points while the Nasdaq added 55 points, with the US 10-year yield easing further to 4.612%, he noted.
In Hong Kong, he said, the Hang Seng Index gained a further 96 points, an improvement of almost 19% from its year-to-date (YTD) low in mid-January – a market revitalisation largely thanks to China’s new measures to boost sentiment as well as the improving corporate earnings.
“Back home, the FBM KLCI ended at another YTD high underpinned by broad-based buying on blue chips, and surprisingly, banks were not the preferred ones.
“Nonetheless, we believe this offers a good opportunity to buy some banking stocks as interest will eventually return to the sector. For today, we expect the index to hover in the 1,580-1,590 range,” he said.
Among the heavyweights, Maybank edged up 2 sen to RM9.77, CIMB rose 7 sen to RM6.68, and IHH Healthcare added 1 sen to RM6.38, while Public Bank slid 1 sen to RM4.17 and Tenaga Nasional trimmed 4 sen to RM11.88.
As for the actives, MKH Oil Palm gained 2.5 sen to 64.5 sen, Cypark rose 9 sen to RM1.03, and KGW Group added 2 sen to 21 sen. Harvest Miracle and Ekovest were flat at 11.5 sen and 44.5 sen, respectively.
On the index board, the FBM emas index improved 13.89 points to 11,914.91 and the FBMT 100 index increased 11.81 points to 11,547.07, while the FBM 70 index fell 20.93 points to 16,580.56, the FBM ACE index eased 0.11 of-a-point to 5,091.99, and the FBM emas shariah index eased 8.27 points to 12,076.21.
Sector-wise, the financial services index advanced 45.51 points to 17,318.91 and the industrial products and services index edged up 0.19 of-a-point to 188.77, but the energy index dropped 2.81 points to 977.68 and the plantation index shaved 29.88 points to 7,429.39. – April 30, 2024