KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI jumped on Friday in the hours leading up to the announcement of the national budget to close at its strongest level since it fell below the 1,750 psychological level on Oct 17,2017.
At 5pm, the 30-stock benchmark index rose 9.33 points to 1,746.13 points. Turnover was 2.76 billion shares with a value of RM2.66bil. There were 476 advancers to 310 decliners with 468 counters unchanged.
Tenaga Nasional brought the KLCI 5.7991 points higher after rising 62 sen to RM14.96 on the back of news that it was declaring a bumper dividend.
Other counters that added points to the index included Axiata, which rose seven sen to RM5.34 and Sime Darby, which gained nine sen to RM9.17.
In telcos, Maxis rose seven sen to RM5.89 while Digi added seven sen to RM4.95.
Among the decliners, Genting Malaysia lost 11 sen to RM5.02 while Genting dropped nine sen to RM9.24. British American Tobacco
was also on the slide, dipping 28 sen to RM40.50.
On the wider market, F&N rose 20 sen to RM25.20 while Time dotCom gained 17 sen to RM9.08.
Asian markets closed the week on solid footing on Friday, taking the lead of US markets that firmed on strong earnings reports by tech shares.
Japan's Nikkei rose 1.2% to 22,008.54 points, its strongest closing level since mid-1996. The index has posted seven straight weeks of gains, the longest weekly winning streak in almost a year, Reuters reported.
South Korea's Kospi also ended stronger, rising 0.64% to 2,496.63 points.
In China, Shanghai's Composite Index rose 0.27% to 3,416.81 points. The Hang Seng index rose 0.8% to 28,438.85, while the China Enterprises Index gained 1.7% to 11,643.57 points.
Taiwan's Taiex dipped 0.24% to 10,709.11 points.
In commodities, US light crude traded higher by two cents to US$52.62 a barrel while Brent crude added seven cents to US59.23 a barrel.
Spot gold traded higher by 73 cents to US$1,267.73 per troy ounce.
In currencies, the ringgit weakened 0.16% against the greenback to 4.2413. It stregthened 0.8% against the pound sterling at 5.5495 and 0.45% against the Singapore dollar at 3.0974.
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