KUALA LUMPUR: Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB), YTL Power International Bhd and YTL Corp Bhd underpinned the FBM KLCI firm performance on Friday. The benchmark index closed up 9.29 points, or 0.59% at 1,589.59 after hitting an intraday high of 1,590.56. For the week, the index gained 0.92%.
Stocks that rose outnumbered those that fell 644 to 417, with another 496 counters unchanged. A total of 3.9 billion shares changed hands, worth RM3.15bil million in all.
According to data on Bursa Malaysia, foreign investors and retailers were net buyers on the market to the tune of RM43mil and RM18mil respectively on Thursday. Local institutions were net sellers at RM61mil.
In today’s session, 22 of the KLCI-component stocks were traded higher while eight counters ended lower. TNB climbed 30 sen to reach RM12.32, adding 2.5045 points to the FBM KLCI on its own.
YTL Power gained 18 sen to RM4.79, pushing the index higher by 2.1240 points while YTL added 10 sen to RM3.26, contributing 1.5921 points to the index.
On the broader market, Malaysian Pacific Industries jumped 58 sen to RM31, Ajinomoto rose 56 sen to RM20.30 and Dutch Lady gained 52 sen to RM34.22.
Among the decliners, Apollo Food slid 18 sen to RM6.86, Ta Ann lost 15 sen to RM4.09 and Allianz fell 10 sen to RM21.18.
Meanwhile, Brent crude futures rose 28 cents to US$83.95 a barrel while the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) added 28 cents to US$79.23 per barrel.
Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan index was firmer by 0.82%. South Korea’s Kospi ended down 0.26% at 2,676.63 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index advanced 1.48% to 18,475.92. Markets in Japan and mainland China were closed on Friday.
