Bursa continues to push higher on Budget hopes, oil price rally

KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KLCI sustained its rally over the morning session as investors picks up heavyweight counters ahead of tomorrow’s tabling of Budget 2023.

At 12.30pm, the key index was up 6.09 points to 1,426.64. There were 351 gainers compared with 292 decliners.

Trading volume was 1.25 billion shares valued at RM708.54mi.

Among the banks, CIMB gained two sen to RM5.28, Hong Leong Bank rose 12 sen to RMY20.82, and Public Bank climbed four sen to R4.29.

Dialog rose five sen to RM2.05, Genting added one sen to RM4.53 and Axiata added two sen to RM2.74.

Glove counters also climbed with Top Glove adding 2.5 sen to 66.5 sen while Hartalega added four sen to RM1.76.

Hibiscus Petroleum continued to gain from the recent jump in crude oil prices, rallying 4.5 sen to 99 sen.

Cosmos meanwhile, held on to a strong lead on its debut trading day, up 21.5 sen to 56.5 sen on 112.5 million shares traded.

Meanwhile, Asian markets rose as the US dollar eased ahead of US non-farm payrolls data and oul prices extended their climb for a fourth straight day following sharp production cuts by Opec+.

Japan’s Nikkei rose 1% to 27,386, South Korea’s Kospi added 1.2% to 2,242, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dipped 0.4% to 18,010.

Australia’s ASX was down 0.1% to 6,810.

China’s market remained closed for the Golden Week holiday.