KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia ended the morning trading session higher, tracking Wall Street’s rally overnight.
At 12.30 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) advanced 6.96 points to 1,672.61 from Thursday's close of 1,665.65.
The benchmark index opened 5.03 points higher at 1,670.68 and moved between 1,669.37 and 1,674.04 throughout the session.
Gainers outpaced decliners 663 to 403, with 410 counters unchanged, 1,039 untraded and 32 suspended.
Turnover stood at 2.15 billion units worth RM1.72 billion.
In a research note today, Hong Leong Investment Bank said the FBM KLCI resumed its uptrend towards short-term resistances at the 1,684-1,710 levels in the wake of the Dow Jones Index’s fresh record high overnight, amid optimism that the United States (US) Federal Reserve could engineer a soft landing for the US economy.
"However, further gains will depend on insights from the upcoming Budget 2025, which aims to drive growth with fiscal stability, strong progressive policies, reforms, and effective execution,” the investment bank said.
Meanwhile, Bursa Malaysia heavyweights Maybank and Public Bank bagged six sen each to RM10.70 and RM4.75, respectively, CIMB surged by 11 sen to RM8.40, Press Metal
added one sen to RM4.94 and MISC gained five sen to RM8.19.
TNB and Petronas Gas were flat at RM14.64 and RM17.86, respectively, while IHH Healthcare shed six sen to RM7.09, and Hong Leong Bank fell two sen to RM21.08.
As for the active counters, Capital A jumped seven sen to 89 sen, Top Glove garnered five sen to RM1.09 and Genetec went up 6.5 sen to RM1.01, while OCR was flat at six sen, Cape EMS eased one sen to 37 sen, and MyEG edged down half-a-sen to 95 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index narrowed 62.13 points to 12,550.84, while the FBM Emas Shariah Index firmed 34.62 points to 12,413.70, the FBMT 100 Index went up 60.89 points to 12,248.70, the FBM 70 Index soared 126.04 points to 17,929.30, and the FBM ACE Index added 2.77 points to 5,182.15.
By sector, the Financial Services Index accumulated 133.71 points to 19,749.19, the Industrial Products and Services Index rose 0.24 of-a-point to 179.67 and the Energy Index was 1.04 points higher at 876.14, while the Plantation Index trimmed 16.10 points to 7,171.03. - Bernama
