Palm | Kelapa Sawit

KL bourse firmer on bargain-hunting

Kuala Lumpur: Shares on Bursa Malaysia ended firmer yesterday on bargain-hunting activities, with sentiments largely lifted by better-than-expected manufacturing activity data from China, which averted fears of a hard landing of the world's second largest economy.

The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI rose 10.21 points or 0.69 per cent to 1,482.37. It had touched an intra-morning low of 1,469.66.

The outlook remained volatile given the persistent worries over a global recession and ongoing eurozone jitters, Hong Leong Investment Bank's head of research Low Yee Huap said.

There is a loss of confidence in the policymakers in the US where fiscal stimulus has been exhausted and monetary policy rates already at zero.

"As such, we expect investors to stay defensive or sidelined," he said.

Alternatively, he said, risk takers could adopt a short-term trading oriented approach to buy on sharp falls, and sell into any rebound.

"Investors remain worried about the outlook, especially with the local bourse going into a short trading week next week," said an analyst.

Bursa Malaysia's Finance Index jumped 87.52 points to 14,109.98, the Plantation Index rose 127.15 points to 7,289.94 and the Industrial Index improved 17.49 points to 2,751.46.

The FBM Emas Index climbed 64.14 points 10,138.11, the FBM70 Index was up 51.41 points to 11,052.22 and the FBM ACE added 13.7 points to 3,797.74.

Advancers outnumbered decliners by 488 to 274 while 256 counters were unchanged and 465 others untraded.

A total of 875.521 million shares worth RM1.762 billion were traded, up from 853.772 million shares valued at RM1.672 billion traded on Monday.

Sunway Bhd made a dismal performance on its debut, leading the top losers with its price dipping by 31 sen or 11.07 per cent to RM2.49. However, its warrants rose 30.5 sen to 31 sen and listed as top gainer.

Among the active counters, Malayan United Industries edged up 1 sen to 21 sen, Axiata was flat at RM4.98 and Astral added 4 sen to 19 sen.

As for heavyweights, Maybank climbed 6 sen to RM8.70, CIMB perked 2 sen to RM7.79, Sime Darby slipped 1 sen to RM8.80 and Tenaga lost 6 sen to RM5.43.

On Bursa Malaysia Derivatives, the FBM KLCI futures ended higher, backed by a firmer cash market.

August 2011 gained 9.5 points to 1,486.5, September 2011 jumped 10.5 points to 1,483, December 2011 increased 12 points to 1,480 and March 2012 improved 11.5 points to 1,478.5. - Bernama