Malaysian share prices closed 0.17 percent higher on Friday with some late-buying of blue chips ahead of the long weekend, dealers said.
Trading was subdued due to profit-taking most of the day until a rally by Genting Bhd on speculation that it might merge the operations of its two UK casino units, London Club International (LCI) and Stanley Leisure, boosted investor sentiment, they said.
The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index closed up 1.62 points at 949.23.
Losers outnumbered gainers 398 to 391, with 315 stocks unchanged and 217 untraded. Volume was 1.16 billion shares worth 1.31 billion ringgit (0.36 billion dollars).
The ringgit was traded at 3.6255 to the US dollar and 4.5415 to the euro.
"Given the ringgit's new-found strength, there is reason to believe the market will attempt to break out from the psychological 950-point level when market resumes trading on Tuesday," a local brokerage dealer said. The market will be closed on Monday for a public holiday.
"Having consolidated for quite some time in a narrow range, the market may just be gathering momentum for a mini rally," the dealer said. Among blue chips, Telekom Malaysia closed flat at 9.75 ringgit, Tenaga Nasional was 0.05 ringgit lower at 8.55 while Maybank was up 0.10 ringgit at 11.10.
Genting Bhd - the day's biggest gainer - was up 1.20 or 4.94 percent at 25.50. Bursa Malaysia, which operates the Malaysian stock exchange, was down 0.05 ringgit at 6.55 after announcing an 8 percent drop in its first quarter to March net profit to 22.99 million ringgit.
Comments
Comments are closed.