KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 17 — Bursa Malaysia snapped its three days of losses to end higher today, supported by last-minute buying as some investors took position ahead of the 15th General Election (GE15) this weekend, a dealer said.

At 5pm, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) improved 0.94 points, or 0.07 per cent, to end at 1,449.32, its intraday high, from Wednesday's close of 1,448.38.

The market bellwether opened 1.82 points easier at 1,446.56, hit an intraday low of 1,441.57 at the midafternoon session.

On the broader market, decliners outpaced gainers 521 to 313, while 405 counters were unchanged, 1,093 untraded and 47 others suspended.

Turnover widened to 2.63 billion units valued at RM1.85 billion versus 2.32 billion units valued at RM1.71 billion on Wednesday.

Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vice-president of equity research Thong Pak Leng noted that market sentiment remained cautious amid the uncertainty ahead of GE15 while negative performance in the region weighed on investor sentiment.

"Key regional indices are mostly in the red today following a negative cue from Wall Street overnight. Investors were also digesting a mixed batch of the United States economic data.

"Meanwhile, Chinese technology stocks saw sharp losses after its multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate Tencent Holdings Ltd announced slashing its US$20 billion stake in Meituan (shopping platform),” he told Bernama.

Back home, Bursa heavyweights Maybank gained five sen to RM8.56, Public Bank added one sen to RM4.31, CIMB pushed up six sen to RM5.41 and IHH Healthcare grew by two sen to RM5.97, while Petronas Chemicals was flat at RM8.62.

Among the actives, Dagang NeXchange share price dropped 25 sen to 50.5 sen, Advance Synergy and Malayan United Industries inched up half-a-sen each to 12.5 sen and nine sen respectively, Perdana Petroleum increased two sen to 11 sen, while Top Glove fell 3.5 sen to 92.5 sen and Citaglobal eased half-a-sen to 23 sen. — Bernama