Bursa Malaysia opens higher, riding positive sentiment and buying in heavyweights
At 9.12am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 8.41 points, or 0.55 per cent, to 1,536.57 from Thursday's close of 1,528.16.
The benchmark index opened 5.25 points higher at 1,533.41.
The broader market was positive, with 319 gainers thumping 119 decliners, 321 counters were unchanged, while 1,680 were untraded and 102 suspended.
Turnover stood at 206.93 million shares worth RM128.65 million.
Malacca Securities Sdn Bhd said the local bourse is likely to trade higher today mirroring Wall Street's upbeat performance, in conjunction with undemanding valuations on the key index.
'Moreover, we favour the construction and utility sectors, given their potential to benefit from Malaysia's foreign direct investment in data centres and ongoing infrastructure developments across the country.
'The latter is further supported by Tenaga Nasional capital expenditure rollout, we understand that another 66 per cent of its RM10 billion allocation is expected to be utilised by year-end,' it said in a note.
Among the heavyweights, Malayan Banking dropped 2.0 sen to RM9.79, Public Bank and CIMB each gained 1.0 sen to RM4.35 and RM6.81, respectively. Tenaga Nasional grew 22 sen to RM14.48 and IHH increased 3.0 sen to RM6.75.
Among the most active counters, EA ticked up half-a-sen to 1.0 sen, NexGram and NexG both remained unchanged at 1.5 sen and 36 sen, respectively. Nova MSC and Digistar each flat at 6.0 sen and 4.0 sen, respectively.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index rose 78.13 points to 11,476.93, the FBMT 100 Index added 76.88 points to 11,258.24, and the FBM Emas Shariah Index gained 111.63 points to 11,452.76.
The FBM 70 Index garnered 179.42 points to 16,450.08, while the FBM ACE Index improved 18.01 points to 4,492.77.
By sector, the Financial Services Index grew 17.57 points to 17,754.67, the Industrial Products and Services Index edged up 0.68 of a point to 152.66, the Plantation Index climbed 13.73 points to 7,342.75, and the Energy Index bagged 3.08 points to 735.76. — Bernama
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