KL shares firmer on bargain-hunting

Shares on Bursa Malaysia ended firmer today along with the Asian markets on bargain hunting with sentiments largely lifted by better-than-expected manufacturing activity data from China, which averted fears of a hard landing of the world's second largest economy.

At close, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI rose 10.21 points or 0.69 per cent to 1,482.37. It had touched an intra-morning low of 1,469.66.

Regionally, Japan's benchmark Nikkei went up 1.22 per cent to 8,733.01 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 1.99 per cent to 19,875.53.

South Korea's Kospi jumped 3.9 per cent to 1776.68 and Singapore's Straits Times Index advanced 1.21 per cent to 2765.15.

However, the outlook remained volatile given the persistent worries over a global recession, ongoing euro zone jitters, Hong Leong Investment Bank's head of research, Low Yee Huap said today.

There is also loss of confidence in the policymakers in US where fiscal stimulus has been exhausted and monetary policy rates already at zero.

"As such, we expect investors to stay defensive or sidelined," he said.

Alternatively, he said, risk takers could adopt a short term trading oriented approach to buy on sharp falls, and sell into any rebound.

The research house also put the composite index's immediate resistance at 1,500-1,530.

"Investors remain worried about the outlook, especially with the local bourse going into a short-trading week, next week," said an analyst.

The stock exchange will be closed for three days next week for the Hari Raya and Merdeka celebrations.

Trading is expected to be half-day on Monday and a full day on Friday.

Most investors were seen shunning away from long term positions, which also saw them rushing towards safer investments such as gold, he said.

Gold price hit a fresh record of above US$1,900 an ounce.

Bursa Malaysia's Finance Index jumped 87.52 points to 14,109.98, the Plantation Index rose 127.15 points to 7,289.94 and the Industrial Index improved 17.49 points to 2,751.46.

The FBM Emas Index climbed 64.14 points 10,089.96, the FBM70 Index was up 51.41 points to 11,052.22 and the FBM Ace added 13.7 points to 3,797.74.

Advancers outnumbered decliners by 488 to 274 while 256 counters were unchanged and 465 others untraded.

A total of 875.521 million shares worth RM1.762 billion were traded, up from 853.772 million shares valued at RM1.672 billion traded on Monday. -- Bernama