KL shares end higher, KLCI up 2.22 points

KUALA LUMPUR: Petronas Chemicals (PetChem), Sime Darby and Genting Malaysia underpinned the FBM KLCI’s advance on Monday.

At  5pm, the benchmark FBM KLCI gained  2.22 points to 1,748.35. The market traded within a range of 4.39 points between an intra-day high of 1,750.85 and a low of 1,746.46 during the session.

Trading volume increased to 2.87 billion shares worth RM2.15bil as compared with Friday’s 2.75 billion shares worth RM2.66bil. Market breadth was positive with 518 gainers as compared to 402 losers while 

Dealers said the performance of the local bourse was limited as investors digest the impact of 2018 budget announced last Friday by the Prime Minister. 

Gainers in the FBM KLCI component stocks were led by PetChem, which contributed 1.634 points to the index, Sime Darby contributed 1.158 to the index while Genting Malaysia lifted the index by 0.910. 

PetChem closed 12 sen higher to RM7.50, Sime Darby rose 10 sen to RM9.27 and Genting Malaysia closed nine sen higher at RM6.03.

Leading the top gainers on Bursa Malaysia, Nestle rose 76 sen to RM87.76, Carlsberg gained 32 sen to RM16 and Lafarge Malaysia increased 32 sen to RM7.08.

Elsewhere in the region, Asian shares were lower with Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average rose 0.01%, the Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.77%, South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.21% and the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong was down 0.36%.

In Europe, Germany’s DAX 30 index rose 0.1% to 13,230.12 points, France’s CAC 40 index gained 0.06% to 5,497.34 and the UK’s FTSE 100 index fell 0.1% to 7,497.76.