BURSA Malaysia opened marginally higher tracking the better performance on Wall Street overnight, on expectations of continuous foreign fund inflow into the local bourse. 

At 9.05 am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) advanced 0.38 of-a-point to 1,465.66 versus yesterday’s close of 1,465.28.

The FBM KLCI opened 1.28 points better at 1,466.56.

However, the broader market was slightly negative as losers outpaced gainers 133 to 111, while 260 counters were unchanged, 1,812 untraded, and 12 suspended.

Turnover amounted to 150.02 million units worth RM72.04 million.

Rakuten Trade equity research vice-president Thong Pak Leng said, on the home front, the FBM KLCI made further progress to close at 1,465 or a one-month high yesterday.

“We believe the flow of foreign funds will persist into the equity market, thus expect the index to trend between the 1,460 and 1,470 range today.

“We noticed that over the past six months, the 1,465-point level seemed to be a strong resistance, hence if this level is broken convincingly, we may see the index to possibly challenge the 1,500 level,” he told Bernama. 

Commenting on Wall Street, he said easing interest rates and economic growth will continue to play their part although valuations may be the road bumps ahead.

“As such, the Dow Jones Industrial Average overnight closed flat while the Nasdaq jumped 91 points as the US 10-year yield climbed marginally to 3.935 per cent.”

On the local bourse, key heavyweights Maybank was two sen higher at RM9.02, Tenaga Nasional erased four sen to RM9.95, Petronas Chemicals decreased six sen to RM7.13, while Public Bank and CIMB were flat at RM4.35 and RM5.94 respectively. 

Of the actives, Careplus put on three sen to 49.5 sen, Top Glove inched up half-a-sen to 96.5 sen, while Leform, Nexgram and SMTRACK were flat at 38.5 sen, 3.5 sen, and 4.5 sen respectively. 

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index dropped 1.48 points to 10,856.95, the FBMT 100 Index was down 0.71 of-a-point to 10,523.61, the FBM 70 Index lost 15.07 points to 14,496.48, the FBM Emas Shariah Index shed 8.94 points to 10,975.84, while the FBM ACE Index perked up 26.06 points to 5,187.46.

Sector-wise,  the Financial Services Index went up 9.95 points to 16,535.46, the Plantation Index edged up 0.37 of-a-point to 7,032.31, the Energy Index slid 0.03 of-a-point to 813.37, and the Industrial Products and Services Index eased 0.41 of-a-point to 172.01. — BERNAMA