KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia remained upbeat on Tuesday as global equities rallied in anticipation of the end of the US government shutdown.
The FBM KLCI, which had risen to its highest closing in over a month yesterday, maintained its bullish momentum to pick up 4.14 points to 1,631.52.
After a 39-day government shutdown, the longest on record in the US, President Donald Trump said he was supportive of a bipartisan deal with the Democrats to end the impasse over the spending bill.
Wall Street shares surged overnight, with the Nasdaq jumping 2.27% and the S&P500 rising 1.54%.
Rakuten Trade noted the strong buying interest on Bursa Malaysia could also be spurred on by the ringgit strengthening to 4.16 against the US dollar, from 4.20 a weak earlier.
"In addition, we also noticed that interest in small caps may have also improved. In view of the improving sentiment, we anticipate the index to trend within the 1,625-1,635 range today," it said in its daily forecast.
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Malacca Securities said there will be a spillover effect from Wall Street's rally on to local technology stocks.
"There will be a key focus on high-momentum names such as Kelington, ViTrox and Frontken," it said.
It added that Mah Sing’s landbanking activities in Penang should provide a healthy project pipeline, particularly benefiting high-rise construction builders like Inta Bina and Binastra. Finally, dividend payouts from banks and REITs remain appealing to investors, it said.
Among individual stocks, F&N rose 46 sen to RM29.22 while F&B rival Nestle gained 30 sen to RM112.30.
PETRONAS Gas rose 28 sen to RM18.78, Hong Leong Bank jumped 22 sen to RM21.08 and Kuala Lumpur Kepong added 18 sen to RM21.30.
In tech plays, Unisem was up 10 sen to RM3.71, VSTECS rose nine sen to RM4.30 and ViTrox jumped eight sen to RM4.71.
Top actives were MMAG unchanged at 9.5 sne, DNeX up 0.5 sen to 32.5 sen and RichTech gaining 0.5 sen to 24.5 sen.
