KUALA LUMPUR – Bursa Malaysia’s barometer index finished higher on Tuesday as investors were on the hunt for bargains on attractive counters following the market slide yesterday.
At 5pm, the FBM KLCI ended at its intraday high of 1,607.57, up 7.28 points, compared with yesterday’s close of 1,600.29.
The market bellwether, which opened 0.14 of-a-point higher, moved between 1,591.83 and 1,607.57 during the session.
The overall market breadth was slightly negative with losers outpacing gainers 575 to 506, while 413 counters were unchanged, 672 untraded and seven others suspended.
Total volume increased to 8.16 billion shares worth RM4.08 billion from 7.47 billion shares worth RM4.10 billion yesterday.
Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd economist Adam Mohamed Rahim said the local market performance improved despite Asian peers ending mixed as investors digested Bank Indonesia’s move to trim 2020 gross domestic product forecast and India hitting a daily record for Covid-19 deaths.
The republic’s central bank announced today it will keep interest rates unchanged and expects the country’s economy to expand at 4.1% to 5.1% this year from 4.3% to 5.3% previously.
“The transportation and logistics index was the biggest gainer with 1.8%, while technology was the biggest laggard after losing 1%,” Adam told Bernama.
Most of the heavyweights also regained some traction with only six counters in the FBM KLCI ending in the red, as investors piled into recently beaten-down counters, including financial services, energy, plantation, telecommunication, transportation and construction.
Elsewhere on the market, Axiata was 21 sen stronger at RM4.00, Genting Bhd expanded 17 sen to RM4.93, MISC rose 12 sen to RM6.80, and Genting Malaysia increased 9 sen to RM2.93.
Maybank was up 3 sen to RM8.31, CIMB was 5 sen higher at RM4.29, HLFG added 14 sen to RM16.90, and Digi was 3 sen better at RM4.25.
Meanwhile, Hartalega declined 17 sen to RM9.87, Top Glove was 6 sen weaker at RM5.40 and Supermax reduced 4 sen to RM5.40.
Among the active counters, Ucrest went up 16 sen to 59.5 sen, Key Asic inched up 3 sen to 20.5 sen, and Censof rose 10 sen to 48 sen.
Bursa Malaysia today has issued an Unusual Market Activity (UMA) query on the sharp rise in the price and volume of Transocean shares, recently.
At close, the counter surged 29.4% or 45 sen to RM1.98 with 878,700 shares traded.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index added 37.93 points to 11,825.13, the FBMT 100 increased 41.47 points to 11,486.55, and the FBM 70 improved 15.83 points to 15,602.92.
The FBM Emas Shariah edged up 21.15 points to 13,232.08 and the FBM ACE was 22.48 points higher at to 8,592.66.
Sector-wise, the Plantation Index expanded 13.80 points to 6,880.03, the Financial Services Index gained 65.65 points to 15,093.15, and the Industrial Products and Services Index was 1.12 points weaker at 195.08.
Main Market volume was higher at 4.42 billion shares worth RM2.81 billion against 4.20 billion shares worth RM3.12 billion on Monday.
Warrants turnover decreased to 307.88 million units valued at RM36.56 million from 362.24 million units valued at RM50.34 million previously.
Volume on the ACE Market rose to 3.44 billion shares worth RM1.23 billion from 2.90 billion shares worth RM929.69 million.
Consumer products and services accounted for 776.06 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products and services (804.98 million), construction (229.85 million), technology (1.35 billion), SPAC (nil), financial services (55.67 million), property (346.71 million), plantations (22.09 million), REITs (5.87 million), closed/fund (9,000), energy (367.92 million), healthcare (69.88 million), telecommunications and media (74.61 million), transportation and logistics (278.91 million), and utilities (27.35 million). – Bernama, April 20, 2021
