Malaysia's Stock Market Opens Mixed

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 5 (Bernama) -- The Malaysian stock market (Bursa Malaysia) opened mixed Thursday, as gainers outpaced sellers on renewed buying interests. At 9.15am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 2.73 points easier at 1,759.11 from Wednesday's close of 1,761.84. The index opened 1.28 points lower at 1,760.56. On the broader market, gainers led losers by 171 to 103, with 205 counters unchanged, 1,371 untraded and 19 others were suspended. Turnover stood at 299.83 million shares worth RM89.61 million. JF Apex Securities said the FBM KLCI could surge above 1,750 points after bouncing off the support level earlier this week, following the mixed performances in the US and Europe. "The US markets extended their record highs after employment and manufacturing data beat expectations while the European stocks ended mixed being dragged by retail counters as the region's sales data dropped and political concerns on Catalonia's independence referendum continues to linger," it said in a note. Of the heavyweights, Maybank gained one sen to RM9.56, Public Bank, Sime Darby and Petronas Chemicals were flat at RM20.58, RM9.05 and RM7.31, respectively, while TNB fell six sen to RM14.22 and CIMB eased four sen to RM6.37. Among active counters, Palette Multimedia rose two sen to 36.5 sen, Sino Hua-An and PUC added one sen each to 23 sen and 15 sen, respectively, MRCB declined six sen to six sen and MTouche edged down half-a-sen to 24 sen. The FBM Emas Index trimmed 11.01 points to 12,545.64, FBMT 100 Index was 11.79 points lower at 12,202.21, FBM 70 went up 12.32 points to 15,029.98, FBM Emas Shariah Index went down 2.78 points to 12,793.13 and the FBM Ace rose 28.21 points to 6,670.94. Sector-wise, the Finance Index slid 27.62 points to 16,537.76, the Industrial Index gained 1.02 points at 3,205.09 and the Plantation Index improved 25.57 points to 7,936.67. -- BERNAMA