KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips rallied on Thursday on fund buying of banks including Public Bank, Maybank and CIMB, propelling the FBM KLCI more than 21 points higher.
With two weeks to the year-end, some funds were seen closing their books.
At 5pm, the KLCI was up 21.34 points or 1.23% to 1,759, making it the best performer among the key Asian markets.
Turnover was 2.43 billion shares valued at RM2.36bil. Advancers led decliners five to three or 540 gainers, 331 losers and 470 counters unchanged.
The ringgit rose 0.07% to 4.0845 against the US dollar. However, it fell 0.6% against the pound sterling and the euro to 5.4851 and 4.8268 and shed 0.21% against the Singapore dollar at 3.0274.
AmBank Economics Research expects the ringgit to strengthen further in 2018, underpinned by the improving macro fundamentals and fiscal position.
It said other factors are the healthy consumer and business sentiments, potential normalisation of the policy rate and its undervaluation to pave the way for the currency to further catch up.
At Bursa, Maybank delivered the biggest contribution to the KLCI with 4.6 points when it rose 24 sen to RM9.49 and giving it a market capitalisation of RM102.298bil.
Public Bank rose 19 sen to RM6.37 and pushed the KLCI up 3.03 point and its market capitalisation rose to RM80.748bil.
CIMB added 19 sen to RM6.37 and nudged the KLCI up 3.11 points. Thursday's gains saw its market capitalisation rising to RM58.766nil.
Hong Leong Bank added 50 sen to RM17.08, AmBank wo sen to RM4.40 and RHB Bank 12 sen to RM5. HLFG 36 sen higher at RM17.90.
Among the semicon related counters, burn-in tester KESM rose 58 sen to RM19.28 and MPI 40 sen to RM11.60.
Genting Bhd
rose 17 sen to RM9.25 and Genting Malaysia five sen to RM5.69. Tenaga was flat at RM15.42.
As for telcos, Axiata rose three sen to RM5.36, Macxis and Telekom one sen each to RM5.94 and RM6.16 while Digi shed five sen to RM4.77.
Sime Plantations took a breather after the recent gains, falling 11 sen to RM5.27 while Sime Darby was flat at RM2.19. Sime Property was nine sen lower at RM1.36.
US light crude oil rose six cents to US$56.66 and Brent gained 29 cents to US$62.73. Among the Petronas-linked stocks, Petronas Gas added 24 sen to RM16.30, Petronas Chemicals one sen higher at RM7.45 while Petronas Dagangan was flat at RM24.50.
BAT was the top gainer of the day, jumping RM1.88 to RM40.20. However, Calrsberg fell 20 sen to RM15.40 and Dutch Lady 10 sen to RM60.90.
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