Malaysia's main market index ends year at all time high; advances 10.34% in 2012.

Tuesday January 1, 2013

Malaysia's main market index ends year at all time high

By TEE LIN SAY
linsay@thestar.com.my

Local bourse advances 10.34% in 2012

PETALING JAYA: The FBM KLCI finished 2012 with a 10.34% gain to close at an all-time high of 1,688.95 as election concerns, defensive trading and high cash holding continued to dominate the equity scene in Malaysia. For the day, the local bourse was up 7.62 points on volume of RM1.31bil shares.

The KLCI's gains were mostly done in the last 15 minutes of trading on selected key blue chip stocks.

Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd was the biggest gainer of the day, closing RM2.06 to RM24, pushing up the KLCI by 3.39 points while Malayan Banking Bhd rose 12 sen to RM9.02 and nudged the index by 2.25 points. AEON Co (M) Bhd was on the gainers list, up RM1.42 to close at RM14.12.

Nonetheless, the KLCI is still one of the underperformers when compared with its regional peers. It is only ahead of the Shanghai Composite Index, Taiwan and South Korea, which recorded year to date gains of 3.17%, 8.87% and 9.38%, respectively.

Not surprisingly, it was the smaller Ace market counters that hogged the gainers list for the year.

These included Microlink Solutions Bhd with a 308% gain to 51 sen andBorneo Aqua Harvest Bhd with a 118.18% gain to 72 sen.

Among the bigger stocks that did well included KLCC Property Holdings Bhd which gained 99.37% to RM6.28 on plans to form a stapled real estate investment trust (REIT).

KLCC Property's restructuring exercise will involve the company acquiring the remaining 49.5% stake in Midciti Resources Sdn Bhdwhich owns the Petronas Twin Towers from KLCC Holdings Bhd for RM2.86bil. Following that, KLCC Property will inject three properties into KLCC REIT.

The properties are the Twin Towers, Menara ExxonMobile and Menara 3 Petronas. Thus once the restructuring is completed, KLCC Property shareholders will own shares and units in both KLCC Property and KLCC REIT.

The best performing stock on the Main Market for the year was Bright Packaging Industry Bhd, which was up 230.58% on a year to date basis.

It closed at RM2, which is also its 10-year high, on news that the company may see a change in its board and management.

Bright manufactures aluminium foil packaging materials which are mainly supplied to the tobacco industry. Last week, the company told Bursa Malaysia that four substantial shareholders with a collective stake of 31.2% had requested an EGM to remove existing directors and appoint new ones.

Over in the Ace market, the best performing stock and overall best performing stock for whole of Bursa Malaysia for 2012 was Green Ocean Corp Bhd.