Bursa Malaysia was seen maintaining its upward trend in early trading today (Wednesday) by continuing to rise to a two-year high driven by continued buying interest and the positive performance of Wall Street overnight.
At 12.30pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was slightly down 0.03% since it opened today at 1,605.20 from yesterday's close of 1,605.68.
The leading market index opened 1.28 points higher at 1,606.96.
In broad sentiment, gainers outnumbered losers by 220 to 158. Meanwhile, 327 counters remained unchanged with 1,624 untraded and 14 others suspended.
The total turnover was 192.48 million units worth RM93.48 million.
Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd's Vice President of Equity Research, Thong Pak Leng said Wall Street is finding it difficult to maintain its continuous upward trend as investors are still waiting for more clues on the potential interest rate adjustment by the Federal Reserve (Fed).
Meanwhile, the FBM KLCI finally crossed the 1,600-point barrier supported by continued buying of luxury stocks by foreign funds.
He said again, they would prefer this increase to continue and a correction may occur. This allowed the market to embrace its recent strong performance.
Among heavyweights, Maybank added three sen to RM9.87, Public Bank and CIMB, each declined one sen to RM4.20 and RM6.80, Tenaga Nasional decreased six sen to RM12.42 and IHH Healthcare was unchanged at RM6.31.
As for active shares, Ingenieur decreased one sen to 7.5 sen while TWL, Sapura Energy and Jaks Resources were unchanged at 2.5 sen, five sen and 13.5 sen respectively.
Meanwhile, He Group rose 4.5 sen to 57.5 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index rose 21.31 points to 12,119.78, the FBMT 100 Index rose 19.19 points to 11,735.04 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index added 24.30 points to 12,327.18.
The FBM 70 Index rose 25.40 points to 16,939.22 and the FBM ACE Index rose 6.31 points to 5,094.20.
By sector, the Financial Services Index rose 2.28 points to 17,527.36, the Industrial Products and Services Index increased 0.53 points to 193.07, the Plantation Index declined 6.03 points to 7,433.62 and the Energy Index added 3.86 points to 979.87.
