Bursa Malaysia rises alongside wall street performance
KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia opened higher today, taking cues from the upward trend of Wall Street’s performance overnight, said analysts.
According to Bernama, at 9:07 AM, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) increased by 0.47 points to 1,609.99 from 1,609.52 at Tuesday’s close.
The index opened stronger, gaining 2.27 points to 1,611.79.
In the broader market, gainers outnumbered losers by 386 to 73, with 216 counters unchanged, 1,793 untraded, and nine others suspended.
The total trading volume amounted to 159.92 million units valued at RM87.60 million.
The Vice President of Equity Research at Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd, Thong Pak Leng, told Bernama that Wall Street’s performance improved due to sentiment driven by positive Producer Price Index (PPI) data.
He stated that this indicates the Consumer Price Index (CPI) figure to be released later today is likely to be lower.
He noted that a lower CPI would signal a rate cut by the US Federal Reserve (Fed) in September.
Domestically, he said Rakuten Trade expects trading activity to improve in line with the upward trend on Wall Street, anticipating the market index to move within the range of 1,610 and 1,620 today.
Among the high-weighted stocks on Bursa Malaysia, YTL Power International, Tenaga Nasional, and Sunway each rose by 6.0 sen to RM4.42, RM13.96, and RM4.25, respectively.
YTL Corporation added 2.0 sen to RM3.37, while Sime Darby and Genting each increased by 3.0 sen to RM2.58 and RM4.41, respectively.
For the most active counters, Cape EMS added 1.5 sen to 47 sen, Dataprep and Nova MSC each rose by half a sen to 22 sen and 23 sen, respectively, while Velesto remained unchanged at 20.5 sen and Malayan United Industries dropped half a sen to 9.0 sen.
The top gainers included Malaysia Pacific Industries, which rose by 64 sen to RM37.20, KESM, which added 35 sen to RM6.29, and United Plantations, which increased by 28 sen to RM25.68.
On the indices, the FBM Gold Index increased by 30.14 points to 12,274.89, the FBMT 100 Index rose by 22.93 points to 11,907.03, and the FBM 70 Index jumped by 105.97 points to 17,864.
The FBM ACE Index climbed by 35.39 points to 5,424.12, and the FBM Shariah Gold Index increased by 41.65 points to 12,414.71.
By sector, the Financial Services Index fell by 7.02 points to 18,205.61, the Energy Index increased by 4.46 points to 928.34, the Industrial Products and Services Index rose by 0.91 points to 182.43, the Plantation Index decreased by 7.26 points to 7,118.62, and the Technology Index gained 0.86 points to 72.05.