Bursa Malaysia rises as Top Glove, Hartalega, MISC, Petchem rebounds

Bursa reopened lower but turned positive thereafter as investors sought out beaten down counters in the previous session, like MISC, PetChem, Hartalega and Top Glove.

At 9.05am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 6.67 points higher at 1,579.90 from 1,573.48 at yesterday's close.

The index opened 10.30 points lower at 1,563.01.

Trading on Bursa Malaysia Securities was halted at 3.30pm yesterday and reopened as normal today with the last traded price will be used as the reference price, except for Can-One.

Its reference price is RM2.68 after adjustment for dividend and the previous day's closing was RM2.74, according to Bursa Malaysia.

Market breadth was positive with gainers surpassing losers 198 to 183, while 260 counters were unchanged, 1,323 untraded and 27 others suspended.

Total volume stood at 659.06 million units worth RM391.06 million.

All eyes will be on the rubber glove stocks, with heavyweights, Top Gloved improved RM1.34 at RM21.04 after hitting its lowest for yesterday at RM19.71 while Hartalega added 58 sen to RM15.74.

Supermax went up 50 sen to RM15.40, Kossan rose 36 sen to RM12.62

Malacca Securities said investors may build up on other lagging sectors such as construction and property moving forward.

"Moreover, the pharmaceutical industry will be in focus on the back of positive developments on vaccines," it said in a note today.

On the other hand, gloves sector may see profit-taking activities.

"Despite the rising Covid-19 confirmed cases, the developments of vaccines are surfacing in the news media, thus it could dampen the buying support on overall glove stocks in the near term," it added.

Malacca Securities said Wall Street ended negative yesterday, snapping its four-day winning streak dragged by technology companies as traders digested worse-than-expected weekly jobless claims numbers, despite several better-than-expected corporate earnings as well as growing retail sales in June at 7.5 per cent.

In addition, the Shanghai Composite Index declined 4.5 percent, although China's economy came in above expectations, growing at 3.2 percent in the second-quarter 2020.

- Bernama