Bursa Malaysia extends gains amid economic recovery hopes

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia extended upward trend Tuesday, buoyed by hopes that the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines will spur economic recovery soon.

At 9.05am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 3.33 points to 1,624.25 versus Monday's close of 1,620.92.

The index opened 2.88 points higher at 1,623.80.

On the broader market, gainers led losers 317 to 195, while 345 counters were unchanged, 1,358 untraded and nine others suspended.

Total volume stood at 560.06 million units valued at RM275.18 million.

Malacca Securities said with the arrival of another batch of Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinovac vaccines, it believes the key index should be trending higher amid expectations of a brighter economic outlook, as well as firmer crude palm oil and oil prices.

Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said Malaysia received 100,000 doses of Sinovac and 83,070 doses of Pfizer-BionTech on Monday.

Pfizer will send another 124,020 doses and 125,190 doses on March 22 and March 29, respectively.

He said 100,000 doses of Sinovac will also arrive on March 22.

Malacca Securities believes traders may continue to put recovery-theme stocks on the radar amid the arrival of more vaccine batches this month.

"Meanwhile, technology stocks may rebound mildly, tracking Nasdaq overnight gains.

"Besides, plantation proxy such as the process equipment and fertiliser segment may gain traction amid the firmer crude palm oil price," it said in a note.

The Wall Street recovered from their intraday losses as the Dow (+0.5 per cent) recorded its seventh day winning streak on increasing optimism over the economic recovery and vaccine rollout progress.

The US Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will kick off its two-day meeting Tuesday, with expectations that the central bank will revise its economy forecast following the US$1.9 trillion fiscal stimulus aid.

Domestically, heavyweights, TNB rose 10 sen to RM10.76 and CIMB and PetChem gained half-a-sen to RM4.58 and RM8.30, respectively.

RHB added eight sen to RM5.55 and Top Glove was two sen higher at RM5.20.

In contrast, Hong Leng Bank went down 42 sen to RM18.80 after Monday's gains and Nestle dropped 90 sen to RM136.20.

Newly-listed this morning, Teladan Setia topped the active counters, increasing 10.5 sen to 58.5 sen with more than 78 million shares traded.

Widad inched up four sen to 72 sen and Komarkcorp was 3.5 sen better at 38 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index went up 21.66 points to 11,906.47, the FBMT 100 was 20.66 points higher at 11,581.96, and the FBM Emas Shariah picked up 26.89 points to 13,156.52.

The FBM 70 rose 16.01 points to 15,640.54 and the FBM ACE surged 90.08 points to 10,716.22.

Sector-wise, the Financial Services Index declined 3.11 points to 15,642.87, while the Plantation Index improved 26.64 points to 7,182.53, and the Industrial Products and Services Index edged up 0.61 of-a-point to 193.05.

-- BERNAMA