Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd equity research vice-president Thong Pak Leng said buying activities should return as foreign funds continue to flow into the region.
“We expect the index to hover within the 1,435 to 1,445 range,” he told Bernama.
This is despite the poor performance on Wall Street overnight. The Dow Jones Index Average lost 67 points while the Nasdaq declined by 14 points as the US 10-year yield jumped to a year-to-date high at 4.178%.
Wall Street also closed marginally lower as traders pondered the surge in the US Treasury yields while waiting for the US non-farm payrolls data to be out later today.
The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) began the day at 1,442.49 points, up 0.64 of a point from yesterday’s close of 1,441.85 points.
It rose further to 1,443.99 points within the first 10 minutes of trading.
On the broader market, gainers surpassed losers 191 to 98, while 221 counters were unchanged, 1,766 were not traded and 26 others were suspended. The turnover stood at 247.35 million units worth RM63.69 million.
Among the heavyweights, Maybank increased three sen to RM8.93, and both Public Bank and Tenaga Nasional gained two sen to RM4.11 and RM9.58 respectively, while CIMB was flat at RM5.46 and Petronas Chemicals lost five sen to RM6.80.
Of the actives, Classita and Pestech added 1.5 sen each to 17.5 sen and 28 sen respectively, and BTM fell a sen to eight sen, while Sapura Energy and Widad were flat at 4.5 sen and 43 sen, respectively.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index went up 17.28 points to 10,610.50, the FBMT 100 Index advanced by 17.10 points to 10,305.11, the FBM Emas Shariah Index earned 10.80 points to 10,880.53, the FBM ACE Index climbed 2.71 points to 5,304.56 and the FBM 70 Index garnered 30.86 points to 13,925.82.
Sector-wise, the financial services index strengthened by 36.47 points to 16,099.44 and the energy index improved by 6.04 points to 830.90, while the industrial products and services index reduced by 0.18 of-a-point to 165.65 and the plantation index gave up 0.15 of-a-point to 7,104.55.