Bursa Malaysia closes on firm note

KUALA LUMPUR: Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB), Sime Darby Bhd and Genting Bhd underpinned the FBM KLCI firm performance on Wednesday tracking the key Asian markets.

At 5pm, the 30-stock index was up 3.16 points to 1,675.21. The benchmark index opened 0.8 of a point weaker at 1,624.17 this morning. The market traded within a range of 4.36 points between an intra-day high of 1675.59 and a low of 1671.23 during the session.

Trading volume increased to 2.75 billion shares worth RM2.02bil as compared to Tuesday’s 2.68 million shares worth RM2.1bil. Market breadth was positive with 467 gainers against 324 losers while 363 counters unchanged.

On Bursa Malaysia, Sam Engineering was the top gainer, up 37 sen to RM5.97, British American Tobacco rose 30 sen to RM46.58 while Time Dotcom added 29 sen to RM8.19.

The top losers included Nestle, which fell 48 sen to RM76 while Petronas Gas declined 32 sen to RM20.66.

IFCA MSC was the most heavily traded counter closed 1.5 sen higher at 36.5 sen. Earlier, IFCA announced that it was unaware of any corporate development that could have contributed to the unusual market activity (UMA) regarding its shares.

Bursa Malaysia has issued IFCA with an UMA for the rise in the price and volume of its shares on Jan 10.

IFCA said after enquiring with the directors and major shareholders, there were no factors for the share price and volume surge.

TNB was one the mover among the KLCI stocks, pushing the 30-stock index up 1.8586 points. It closed 20 higher at RM14. Sime Darby added 5 sen to RM8.50 pushing the index up by 0.5591 while Genting rose 9 sen to RM8.30, nudging the index up by 0.5549.

Among the banks, Public Bank gained 4 sen to RM20.06, CIMB Group rose 2 sen to RM4.82 while Hong Leong Bank was up 6 sen to RM13.36.

Elsewhere in the region, Asian shares were a higher with Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average rose 0.33%, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.19%, Korea’s Kospi rose 1.47%, and the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong was up 0.84%.