KUALA LUMPUR: The rally on Bursa Malaysia picked up steam on Thursday with investors buying up a broad spread of over 700 stock counters on the Malaysian market.
The benchmark FBM KLCI also saw robust interest, rising 10.93 points or 0.674% to 1,631.8 to a fresh nine-month peak.
On the market, 739 stocks rose and 330 fell as advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.24-to-1 ratio. Sector-wise, financial services continued on its hot streak, leading the 12 other sectors in a display of strong investor sentiment.
In tandem with the buying interest, trading activity was seen picking up, with the midday volume hitting 2.57 billion shares for a value of RM1.73bil.
Global tech shares were having a field day following a private ADP employment report that showed US payrolls had contracted in September. The evidence of a weaker economy bolstered bets that the Federal Reserve will conduct two more interest rate cuts for the reaminder of the year.
On Bursa Malaysia, the semiconductor plays jumped - MPI rose 86 sen to RM29.76, UWC leapt 39 sen to RM4.24, Vitrox gained 35 sen to RM4.30 and Pentamaster added 30 sen to RM4.09.
Meanwhile, leading banks on the FBM KLCI were also seeing active buying, riding on the momentum sparked by August's loans growth.
CIMB rose nine sen to RM7.54, Hong Leong Bank gained 16 sen to RM20.96, Maybank added four sen to RM9.99 and RHB rose nine sen ot RM6.75.
Of actives, top shares included VS Industry up two sen to 62 sen, ACE Market debutant Camaroe gaining two sen to 16 sen and Pharmaniaga
gaining 0.5 sen to 29 sen.
