KUALA LUMPUR: Share prices on Bursa Malaysia closed higher today following Wall Street's overnight rally, dealers said.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index added 23.71 points to 1,950.82 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 216.58 points to 16,677.90 on the back of strong US corporate earnings and encouraging economic reports.
At 5pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,818.86, rising 8.18 points, boosted by British American Tobacco, Kuala Lumpur Kepong and Petronas Gas.
The benchmark index, which opened 3.64 points higher at 1,814.32, moved between 1,810.02 and 1,819.23.
Affin Investment Bank vice president/head of retail research, Dr Nazri Khan Adam Khan said profit-taking capped further upside following yesterday's solid gains.
However, he said the longer term trend remained firmly bullish, despite the weaker near term trend.
"The market made a sharp rebound as the US positive sentiment spilled over into Asian bourses led by Nikkei, with Japanese stocks returning to a seven-year high," he told Bernama.
On the scoreboard, the FBM Emas Index rose 69.59 points to 12,639.04, the FBMT100 Index added 61.5 points to 12,284.99 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index rose 118.16 points to 13,022.93.
The FBM 70 increased 93.391 points to 13,918.69 and the FBM Ace gained 88.5 points to 6,303.3.
The Finance Index improved 4.66 points to 16,672.91, the Plantation Index rose 133.04 points to 8,143.98 and the Industrial Index added 58.62 points to 3,206.
Gainers outpaced losers 625 to 254, while 251 counters were unchanged, 514 untraded and 20 others suspended.
Total volume rose to 1.88 billion shares valued at RM1.77 billion from 1.59 billion shares worth RM2.01 billion on Thursday.
Among active stocks, Sona Petroleum-Wa gained 6.5 sen to 26.5 sen, Malaysian Airline System was flat at 25.5 sen and IFCA MSC gained four sen to 54 sen.
Of the heavyweights, Maybank slipped six sen to RM9.70 and Tenaga rose 14 sen to RM13.00 and Public Bank rose two sen to RM18.64.
Main Market volume rose to 1.43 billion units valued at RM1.64 billion from 1.19 billion units worth RM1.92 billion on Thursday.
Turnover on the ACE Market increased to 342.7 million shares worth RM111.85 million from 322.32 million shares valued at RM83.07 million yesterday.
Warrants went up to 91.72 million units valued at RM9.87 million from 72.62 million units worth RM7.17 million previously.
Consumer products accounted for 129 million shares traded on the Main Market, industrial products (203.15 million), construction (50.2 million), trade and services (545.8 million), technology (95.2 million), infrastructure (13.54 million), SPAC (236.34 million), finance (48.26 million), hotels (3.52 million), properties (84.24 million), plantations (19.93 million), mining (165,000), REITs (5.16 million) and closed/fund (62,000).-- Bernama