KUALA LUMPUR – Bursa Malaysia reversed yesterday’s losses to open higher today, supported by renewed buying interest despite Wall Street’s softer performance overnight, an analyst said.
At 9.10am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI rose 4.96 points to 1,609.22 from yesterday’s close of 1,604.26.
The benchmark index opened 4.62 points firmer at 1,608.88.
Nevertheless, on the broader market, decliners outnumbered gainers 324 to 189, with 305 counters unchanged, 1,564 untraded, and 46 suspended.
Turnover was 414.65 million shares worth RM258.76 million.
Malacca Securities Sdn Bhd said data centres will be the key theme at this juncture following Google’s US$2 billion investment in data centre and cloud services in Malaysia.
The brokerage believes this may benefit stocks in the technology sector related to hard disk drives, electronics manufacturing services and cybersecurity.
“Other sectors that will benefit under this theme include construction, property, building materials and utilities,” it said in a note.
On the global market, it said Wall Street ended lower as investors took profits before the upcoming personal consumption expenditures price index data due later today, which will greatly influence the US Federal Reserve rate cut decisions.
The European stock market ended higher, while Asia ended lower, the latter due to profit-taking before the release of key economic data, it added.
Among the heavyweights, Maybank added three sen to RM9.93, Public Bank rose two sen to RM4.10, and IHH Healthcare gained eight sen to RM6.27, while Tenaga Nasional lost four sen to RM13.14.
CIMB was flat at RM6.84.
Among the actives, Harvest Miracle increased half-a-sen to 11 sen, Vizione was one sen higher at 5.0 sen, and JCY was up 1.5 sen to 54 sen. Datasonic fell half-a-sen to 51 sen and Genting slipped nine sen to RM2.71.
On the index board, the FBM emas index improved 13.41 points to 12,250.12, the FBMT 100 index increased by 16.49 points to 11,852.01, the FBM emas shariah index strengthened 8.81 points to 12,489.42, the FBM ACE index slid 48.96 points to 5,400.96, and the FBM 70 index tumbled 56.87 points to 17,563.02.
Sector-wise, the financial services index edged up 41.96 points to 17,536.17, the industrial products and services index inched up 0.63 of-a-point to 196.01, and the plantation index gained 8.79 points to 7,158.42, while the energy index dipped 4.28 points to 982.71. – May 31, 2024