KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia edged up on Friday as investor sentiment perked up on the better-than-expected gross domestic product (GDP) data released earlier.At day’s end, the FBM KLCI index closed at 1,721.66, up 3.55 points, or 0.21% led by decline in Genting, Axiata, and CIMB.The index opened 2.70 points higher at 1,720.81. The market traded within a range of 5.82 points between an intra-day high of 1,725.69 and a low of 1,719.87 during the day.In the broader market, there were 419 stocks advancing against 408 stocks declining while 419 counters unchanged. About 2.21 billion shares, valued at RM2.22bil, changed hands.Malaysia’s economy grew 6.2% in the third quarter of 2017, up from 5.8% in the previous quarter, beating the median estimate of a 5.7% by 19 economists polled by Bloomberg. Axiata added 10 sen to RM5.28, KESM rose 24 sen to RM19.18 while United Plantations gained 20 sen to RM28.Among the banks, Maybank rose one sen to RM9.22, CIMB added eight sen to RM6 and Public Bank fell six sen to RM20.38.Elsewhere in the region, Japan’s Nikkei 225 ended 0.2% higher to 22,396.80, the highest closing since Nov 10. South Korea’s KOSPI was down 0.80 points or 0.03% at 2,533.99 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.6% to 29,199.04 points.China’s blue-chip CSI300 index rose 0.4% to 4,120.85 points and the Shanghai Composite Index closed down 0.5% to 3,382.91 points.

Source: The Star November 17, 2017 09:22 UTC