Bursa Malaysia remains positive at midday

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia stayed higher at midday, supported by persistent buying in heavyweight stocks while tracking its regional peers.

At 12.30 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 0.57 per cent or 9.14 points to 1,607.10 from Tuesday's close of 1,597.96.

The benchmark index, which opened 1.64 points higher at 1,599.60, moved between 1,599.60 and 1,607.82 throughout the morning session.

On the broader market, gainers surpassed decliners 695 to 358 while 449 counters were unchanged, 903 untraded and nine others suspended.

Turnover amounted to 3.20 billion units worth RM1.92 billion.

Malacca Securities Sdn Bhd said that with the prices of commodities surging, it expects traders to shift their attention to the energy and plantation sectors at least for the near term.

Meanwhile, the rising investment in data centres, AI and cloud services remain as the centre of attention, and it should benefit the construction, property, building materials and renewable energy sectors.

Meanwhile, the brokerage said a few key events that the market will be monitoring include the Federal Open Market Committee minutes due later today and the US non-farm payrolls data on Friday.

Among the heavyweight counters, Maybank, Public Bank and IHH Healthcare were all flat at RM9.99, RM4.04 and RM6.30 respectively.

Tenaga Nasional added 12 sen to RM14.12 and CIMB gained three sen to RM6.91.

As for the actives, ACE Market debutant Go Hub increased 61.5 sen to 96.5 sen, WCT went up 11 sen to RM1.0, UUE Holdings was two sen higher at 71.5 and Ekovest improved 1.5 sen to 46 sen.

On the index board, the FBM Emas Index increased 90.25 points to 12,402.99, the FBMT 100 Index rose 87.30 points to 11,971.62 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index surged 124.14 points to 12,773.31.

The FBM 70 Index climbed 203.51 points to 18,278.23, and the FBM ACE Index climbed 30.47 points to 5,916.49

Sector-wise, the Energy Index gained 8.14 points to 988.27, the Industrial Products and Services Index grew by 1.23 points to 198.37, the Financial Services Index bagged 0.33 of a point to 17,546.51 and the Plantation Index strengthened by 22.40 points to 7,008.27.

-- BERNAMA