Bursa Malaysia Opened Higher, Driven by Wall Street's Positive Performance

<p>&nbsp;Bursa Malaysia continued last week's gains to open higher in Monday's opening session as investors took advantage of positive performance indicators from Wall Street last Friday.</p><p><br /></p><p>This morning, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 2.86 points to 1,478.23 from 1,486.37 when it closed last week.</p><p><br /></p><p>The overall sentiment was positive where gainers outnumbered losers by 236 to 115. Meanwhile, 231 counters were unchanged, 1,681 counters were not traded and 15 others were suspended.</p><p><br /></p><p>The total turnover was 223.65 million units worth RM107.03 million.</p><p><br /></p><p>According to Rakuten Trade Vice President of Equity Research, Thong Pak Leng said Wall Street closed higher on Friday as investors chose to focus on some data such as a strong labor market and an encouraging US economy.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>He also said that the FBM KLCI moved up again at the end of the week following a correction from the 1,500 level the previous week. The local index will hover in the range of 1,485 to 1,495.</p><p><br /></p><p>Plantation stocks may be in focus today as crude palm oil rose strongly to almost RM4,000 a tonne following demand from China for the upcoming Chinese New Year celebrations.</p><p><br /></p><p>Among heavyweight stocks, Public Bank rose one sen to RM4.36, CelcomDigi added three sen to RM4.23 but IHH Healthcare fell three sen to RM5.97.</p><p><br /></p><p>Maybank, CIMB, Tenaga, and Petronas Chemicals were flat at RM9.03, RM6.01, RM10.44 and RM6.78 respectively.</p><p>Among the active stocks, Widad increased 1.5 sen to 12.5 sen, Sarawak Consolidated and Artroniq each increased two sen to 31 sen and 30.5 sen while Leform remained unchanged at 16 sen.</p><p><br /></p><p>By sector, the Financial Services Index rose 12.77 points to 16,626.29, the Real Estate Index rose 4.99 points to 895.96, the Plantation Index fell 1.67 points to 7,164.76, the Energy Index added 2.61 points to 845.93 and the Industrial Products and Services Index was down 0.52 points to 173.44.</p>