Bursa Malaysia opened higher this morning after a long weekend break, in line with the performance of other regional bourses.
According to Bernama, performance on the local bourse was also driven by buying momentum involving key heavyweights, especially in the financial services, healthcare and utilities sectors.
At 9.02am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) index rose 10.53 points to 1,576.93 from 1,566.40 when it closed on Friday.
The key index opened 8.63 points higher at 1,575.03.
In broader markets, sahan gain outnumbered losers by 265 to 151 while 370 counters were unchanged, 1,334 untraded and 12 others suspended.
Turnover was 315.43 million units worth RM169.56 million.
The market closed yesterday in conjunction with the Federal Territory Day celebration.
Yesterday, the US stock market moved higher as the Dow rose 0.8% after the focus shifted to a network of corporate earnings announcements soon from corporate giants such as Amazon and Alphabet.
Apart from the US market, European and Asian markets also closed higher yesterday.
According to Malacca Securities in a note today, the firm said by tracking the overnight profits of regional exchanges and Wall Street, market participants could take into account the Conditional Movement Control Order (PKPB) instead of the strict PKP (even in the increasingly Covid-19 case environment) to move forward to avoid economic collapse.
"Therefore, we may expect a small recovery in moving forward. However, the recovery could attract profit-taking activities as the status of Covid-19 Malaysia has not yet subsided at this time.
"We may also see some interest in transactions in the health and vaccine-related sectors in the near future," he said in a post today.
For the more focused sector, the brokerage firm is also aware that with the increase in Covid-19 cases over the next financial reporting season, glove-related counters may remain on investor radar.
Meanwhile, the arrival of vaccines in Malaysia will inevitably spark business interest within vaccine companies as well as transportation and logistics.
Apart from that, the plantation counter will also see some re-increase following the increase in crude palm oil prices.
Among heavyweights, Maybank rose 13 sen to RM7.94, Top Glove rose 15 sen to RM6.89, Petronas Chemicals gained eight sen to RM6.79 and Petronas Gas was up 28 sen at RM16.32.
The strongest shares, Iris Corp added 1.5 sen to 45 sen, BIMB rose two sen to 25 sen, Metronic rose half a sen to 105 sen while GPA dropped 2.5 sen to 85 sen.
On the index board, the FBM Emas Index jumped 62.26 points to 11,426.07, the FBMT 100 Index strengthened 64.52 points to 11,169.45 and the FBM Emas Syariah Index rose 75.51 points to 12,946.37.
FBM 70 rose 46.45 points to 14,793.79 while FBM ACE declined 143.82 points to 10,889.12.
By sector, the Financial Services Index rose 72.05 points to 14,536.11, the Plantation Index added 8.90 points to 7,106.79 and the Industrial Products and Services Index was higher by 0.47 points to 169.66.
