KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI surged 4.5% on Thursday as investors snapped up beaten-down stocks, following U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of an immediate 90-day tariff pause for many countries.
The benchmark index rose 62.54 points, or 4.47%, to close at 1,463.13 after trading between an intraday high of 1,473.36 and a low of 1,453.13. All indices ended in positive territory.
Market sentiment on Bursa Malaysia was overwhelmingly positive, with 1,075 gainers outpacing 183 losers, while 261 counters remained unchanged. This resulted in a market breadth of 5.87, indicating strong buying momentum.
Trading volume was brisk at 4.41 billion shares valued at RM3.81bil.
Among the FBM KLCI component stocks, CIMB jumped 8.82%, or 56 sen to RM6.91, contributing 8.9989 points to the index.
Maybank jumped 49 sen to RM9.99, contributing 8.86 points to the index. Public Bank added 16 sen to RM4.25, lifting the index by 4.65 points, while Tenaga Nasional advanced 48 sen to RM13.30, boosting the index by 4.18 points.
On the broader market, Malaysian Pacific Industries
jumped RM1.48 to RM15.08, BLD Plantation gained 62 sen to RM10.52 while Heineken rose 58 sen to RM26.18.
Among the decliners, Warisan slid 21 sen to RM1.20, Time Dotcom fell nine sen to RM4.89 and Tong Herr declined eight sen to RM1.37.
MyEG, the most actively traded counter on Bursa Malaysia rose 10.6%, or eight sen to 83.5 sen with 156.49 million shares done.
Fund flow-wise, foreign investors offloaded RM512mil worth of equities on Bursa Malaysia.
Local institutions and retailers emerged as the major net buyers, with net purchases of RM450mil and RM62mil respectively.
Meanwhile, the ringgit strengthened to 4.4712 against the US dollar, up 0.56%, and rose marginally by 0.01% to 3.3361 against the Singapore dollar.
Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index was 4.29% higher.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 surged 9.13% to 34,609.00 while South Korea’s Kospi closed up 6.6% at 2,445.06.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 2.06%, at 20,681.78 and China’s CSI 300 index edged up 1.31% to 3,735.12.
