Arrival Vaccine Assists Market Sentiment

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Bursa Malaysia opened strong momentarily on this morning's trading session before declining after major indices were affected by sales activity involving heavyweights banking counters, led by Maybank and Public Bank.


At 9.05am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) benchmark fell 2.04 points or 0.13 per cent to 1,582.89 from 1,584.93 when it closed on Friday afternoon last week.


Bernama reported that the key index opened 2.58 points higher at 1,587.51.


Market price movements, however, were positive with overall market sentiment boosted by the arrival of the first batch of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines yesterday.


In the broader market, gainers outnumbered losers by 404 to 219 while 323 counters were unchanged, 1,250 untraded and nine others suspended.


Turnover was 807.75 million units worth RM308.36 million.



Malacca Securities Sdn Bhd believes the launch of the national vaccine on Wednesday earlier than scheduled, followed by a decrease in the number of Covid-19 cases helped boost market sentiment.


Among heavyweights, Maybank fell four sen to RM7.99, Public Bank declined two sen to RM4.11, Petronas Chemicals fell eight sen to RM7.41, Top Glove lowered 16 sen to RM5.89 while Tenaga rose five sen. to RM9.93.


Strongest stocks, Nexchange Trading warrants rose four sen to 34.5 sen, EA Holdings and Velesto gained half-a-sen each to five sen and 17.5 sen, Nexgram one sen stronger to five sen and OCK Group added 4.5 sen to 56 sen. .


Shares that recorded the highest gain were MPI, rising 36 sen to RM38.76 while MI Technovation shares lost the most, declining 34 sen to RM4.64.


On the index board, the FBM Emas Index strengthened 4.06 points to 11,645.67, the FBMT 100 Index gained a small gain of 0.22 points to 11,320.56 and the FBM Emas Syariah Index rose 6.53 points to 13,125.62.


FBM 70 increased 57.17 points to 15,416.52 and FBM ACE expanded 61.34 points to 11,309.96.


By sector, the Financial Services Index fell 47.68 points to 14,825.10, the Industrial Products and Services Index declined 0.24 points to 182.03 while the Plantation Index strengthened 8.76 points to 7.197.81.

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