The FBM KLCI opened slightly higher on Friday despite a subdued session on Wall Street, with investors remaining cautious over elevated bond yields and oil prices.
The benchmark index rose 1.21 points or 0.07% to 1,673.52 at 9.15am after opening 2.56 points higher at 1,674.87.
Utilities and renewable energy counters led some of the early gains. Northern Solar jumped 9.32% to RM1.29, Solarvest gained 3.08% to RM4.02 and Tenaga Nasional rose 0.77% to RM13.16.
Hong Leong Financial Group added 10 sen to RM18.96, while PETRONAS Dagangan gained 10 sen to RM20.10 and Press Metal Aluminium rose three sen to RM7.49.
On the losing side, Nestlé fell 78 sen to RM90.68, Malaysian Pacific Industries dropped 28 sen to RM43.22 and Dutch Lady shed 26 sen to RM30.10. PETRONAS Chemicals declined 10 sen to RM4.48.
Wall Street provided little direction overnight. The S&P 500 slipped 0.02% to 7,704.13 points, while the Nasdaq edged up 0.01% to 26,939.37 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.31% to 51,349.98 points.
Malacca Securities expects the market to remain cautious amid elevated bond yields and oil prices, while seeing continued trading interest in upstream oil and gas counters.
It highlighted Hibiscus Petroleum, which produced about 32,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in July and has guided FY2027 sales of 10.7 million to 11.2 million barrels of oil equivalent.
Dayang Enterprise remained supported by an order book of more than RM4 billion, while Deleum has an order book of RM2.4 billion that provides earnings visibility.
