Bursa Malaysia Rebounds at Opening Driven by Bargain Hunting

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 30 – Bursa Malaysia’s benchmark index rebounded to open higher on Wednesday morning as selective bargain hunting emerged following recent sharp losses, overriding mixed performance signals from Wall Street.

At 9:10 AM, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) gained 4.34 points, or 0.26 per cent, to trade at 1,648.30 compared to Tuesday’s close of 1,643.96. The index opened 2.53 points higher at 1,646.49.

Despite the rebound in the main index, broader market sentiment remained cautious, with decliners outpacing gainers 214 to 174. A total of 293 counters were unchanged, 2,174 untraded, and 95 suspended. Early market turnover stood at 265.65 million shares valued at RM151.82 million.

Banking and Utility Heavyweights Support Rebound

Financial and utility heavyweights provided early upward momentum:

• Tenaga Nasional added 10 sen to RM12.82.
• Maybank rose 3 sen to RM10.02.
• Public Bank gained 2 sen to RM4.74.
• CIMB bucked the bank trend, edging down 2 sen to RM7.76.
• IHH Healthcare traded flat at RM7.87.

Active Stocks and Top Movers

In active trading, Gamuda earned 13 sen to RM5.11, following its record annual financial results release. Visdynamics surged 10 sen to 52 sen, V.S Industry recouped 1.5 sen to 25 sen, and Zetrix AI added half a sen to 17 sen. Cuscapi remained flat at 5 sen.

Early top gainers included:

• Allianz Malaysia, advancing 14 sen to RM21.00.
• MISC, rising 14 sen to RM7.74.
• Hong Leong Industries, up 10 sen to RM16.60.
• UMS Integration and MI Technovation, both firming 9 sen to RM8.70 and RM5.48, respectively.

On the losing end, Eurospan led the decliners, dropping 29 sen to RM2.95. Petronas Dagangan shed 28 sen to RM19.04, Aeon Credit edged down 14 sen to RM5.05, while Dutch Lady and Hong Leong Bank erased 12 sen each to RM29.88 and RM23.16, respectively.

Index and Sector Movement

Across index boards, performance was mixed:

• The FBM Emas Index climbed 19.22 points to 12,284.69.
• The FBM Top 100 Index improved 19.81 points to 12,071.35.
• The FBM Emas Shariah Index ticked up 25.02 points to 12,152.63.
• The FBM Mid 70 Index fell 21.36 points to 17,588.72.
• The FBM ACE Index trimmed 4.12 points to 5,524.46.

Sectorally, the Financial Services Index perked up 10.43 points to 19,271.29 and the Plantation Index added 1.86 points to 9,218.20. Conversely, the Energy Index surrendered 4.42 points to 864.28, and the Industrial Products and Services Index slipped 0.36 of a point to 180.50.

–NMT