KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s blue chips staged a mild rebound on Tuesday, aided by fund buying of Maybank and Tenaga Nasional but the ringgit continued to show weakness as it slipped to a fresh 1998 low.
At midday, the FBM KLCI was up 9.28 points or 0.59% to 1,581.82. Turnover was 1.31 billion shares valued at RM928.52mil. There were 397 gainers, 336 losers and 309 counters unchanged.
The ringgit slipped to 4.1202 to the US dollar at midday, weakening from Monday’s close of 4.0995.
Banks were among the top gainers, led by top lender Maybank, gaining 22 sen to RM8.41, AmBank added 10 sen to RM5.03, CIMB eight sen to RM4.98, Public Bank two sen to RM18. RHB Capital fell eight sen to RM6.50 while Hong Leong Bank shed six sen to RM12.74.
Among the utilities, Tenaga Nasional added 22 sen to RM10.54, snapping the recent slide. However, UMW fell 18 sen to RM8.81.
As for telcos, Axiata lost two sen to RM5.71 but DiGi added seven sen to RM5, Maxis two sen to RM6.37 and TM one sen to RM6.19.
US light crude oil fell 10 sen to US$41.77 and Brent was down 13 cents to US$48.61.
SapuraKencana Petroleum fell two sen to RM1.69, Petronas Daganagan four sen lower to RM20.02, Petronas Chemicals shed one sen to RM5.83 but Petronas Gas added four sen to RM21.10. Bumi Armada
inched up one sen to 87 sen.
Crude palm oil for third month delivery rose RM2 to RM2,065 per tonne. KL Kepong was the top loser, down 22 sen to RM20.20, IOI Corp one sen to RM3.93 but Sime Darby added six sen to RM7.96 and PPB Group 14 sen to RM14.80.
IJM Corp fell 13 sen to RM5.99 after Norway’s US$871bil sovereign wealth fund Norges Bank has excluded IJM Corp and Genting Bhd from its investments due to risks of “severe environmental damage”. Genting Plantations lost 19 sen RM9.19.
However, MPI rose 27 sen to RM5.94 and Globetronics added 23 sen to RM5.83 on firmer interest in semicon stocks.
Among the key regional markets,
Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.17% to 20,586.06;
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 0.08% to 2,3,795.11;
Shanghai’s Composite Index fell 1.46% to 3,935.33;
Taiwan’s Taiex fell 0.43% to 8,178.19;
South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.57% to 1,957.39 and
Singapore’s Straits Times Index added 0.23% to 3,074.38
Spot gold rose US$1.33 to US$1,119.03.
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