Bursa Malaysia joined the key Asian markets recovery as they notched gains of between 0.4% and 2.25% with Dialog, telcos, glove makers and Maybank underpinning the advance.
KUALA LUMPUR: Key Asian markets and Bursa Malaysia ended Monday on a firmer note as calm returned, with local fund buying seen in Axiata, Telekom and Public Bank, but overall trading volume declined sharply.
At 5pm, the KLCI was up 10.35 points or 0.57% to 1,830.17. Turnover was 1.80 billion shares valued at RM2.26bil – the lowest in many weeks. There were 453 gainers, 484 losers and 396 counters.
Foreign funds continued to reduce their shareholdings of Malaysian equities with net selling at RM230.3mil while local retailers were net sellers also at RM14.74mil. Local institutions were net buyers at RM245.04mil.
The ringgit rose 0.08% to the US dollar to 3.9365 and advanced 0.81% to the pound sterling at 5.4567 while it edge dup 0.01% to the euro at 4.8331. However, it fell 0.34% to the Singapore dollar at 2.9697.
Asian share markets found a semblance of calm on Monday as S&P futures extended their bounce, while European indexes opened higher as volatility eased back following last week's spike, Reuters reported.
The sell-off last week spilled over into currencies, forcing many traders to unwind their bets on a stronger euro and to exit higher yielding but riskier currencies and seek safety in the Japanese yen and Swiss franc, it reported.
At Bursa Malaysia, Axiata rose 16 sen to RM5.58 and pushed the KLCI up 2.58 points, Telekom gained 22 sen to RM6.13 and nudged the index up 1.47 points while Digi eked out a four sen gain to RM4.84.
US light crude oil jumped US$1.34 to US$60.54 and Brent gained US$1.33 to US$64.12.
Petronas Gas gained 28 sen to RM17.76, Petronas Daganan added 10 sen to RM17.50 while Petronas Chemicals fell two sen to RM7.98.
As for banks, Public Bank added 14 sen to RM21.94, Hong Leong Bank added six sen to RM17.96, Maybank and CIMB four sen higher at RM6.90 and RM6.90, RHB Bank was flat at RM5.17 and AmBank fell three sen to RM4.39.
HLFG fell the most, down 44 sen to RM1.814 and erased 0.9 of a point from the KLCI.
Tenaga added four sen to RM15.76, Genting Bhd
two sen to RM8.80 and Genting Malaysia flatr at RM8.80.
Crude palm oil for third month delivery rise RM40 to RM2,554 per tonne.
Among the plantations, PPB Group added 10 sen to RM17.50, KL Kepong two sen higher at RM25.24 and IOI Corp was flat at RM4.68.
Sime Plantation gained seven sen to RM5.57, Sime Property three sen to RM1.47 but Sime Darby lost four sen to RM2.68.
Property developer SP Setia rose in active trade, up five sen to RM3.30 with 34.8 million shares done.
Among the consumer stocks, Ajinomoto climbed 34 sen to RM19.96, Nestle 20 sen higher at RM116.30 but BAT fell 26 sen to RM32.12.
As for technology and chip makers, SAM fell 14 sen to RM6.73, Inari 13 sen lower at RM4.99, Unisem 12 sen to RM2.77 and MPI 11 sen lower at RM9.05.
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