KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips closed higher on Tuesday, supported by the rebound in Petronas stocks, MISC and Maxis amid a firmer broader market but restraining buying interest was the weakening ringgit as foreign funds were net sellers.
Foreign funds continued to be net sellers at -RM222.17mil but the selling was offset by local institutions buying at RM210.16mil and local retailer was net buyers at RM12.01mil.
At 5pm, the FBM KLCI was up 3.65 points or 0.22% to 1,635.84 and it was down 3.35% year-to-date. Turnover was 1.62 billion shares valued at RM2.05bil. There were 427 gainers, 362 losers and 375 counters unchanged.
The ringgit weakened against the US dollar to 4.0468 from 4.0122 and slipped to 5.8453 against the pound sterling from 5.7897. It was quoted at 2.9554 to the Singapore dollar from 2.9404 and gave up ground against the euro to 4.6113 from 4.5718.
Meanwhile, the US dollar's overwhelming position of dominance in the global financial system poses risks to world financial stability, but it's not clear that a more diversified arrangement would be any safer, Reuters quoted the Bank for International Settlements as saying on Tuesday.
Most key Asian market ended Tuesday higher, with Japan markets among the top performers.
Oil rose on Tuesday, driven by supply disruptions in Canada and elsewhere that have knocked out 2.5 million barrels of daily production and temporarily eclipsed concern over high global inventories and a looming surplus of refined products.
US light crude rose 40 cents to US$43.84 and Brent gained 69 cents to US$44.32.
Petronas Chemicals rebounded 31 sen to RM6.42 and boosted the KLCI by 4.26 points, Petronas Gas added 40 sen to RM21.30 but Petronas Dagangan lost 14 sen to RM22.86. SK Petro shed two sen to RM1.58.
Tenaga fell 18 sen to RM13.94 and erased 1.74 points from the KLCI. Genting Bhd
fell six sen to RM8.35 but Genting Malaysia rose four sen to RM4.34.
Crude palm oil for third month deliovery fell RM10 to RM2,652 per tonne. PPB Group fell 10 sen to RM15.60 but IOI Corp and Sime Darby gained two sen to RM4.18 and RM7.54, KL Kepong added four sen to RM22.96, Chin Tek rose 33 sen to RM7.98.
Among the telcos, Axiata fell four sen to RM5.36, Digi and Telekom two sen to RM4.38 and RM4.38 but Maxis rose 12 sen to RM5.49
Barrons reported J.P. Morgan downgraded Malaysia to Underweight largely because it is worried about Malaysian banks, which also account for about 30% of the iShares MSCI Malaysia ETF (EWM).
“Negative outlook on financials (c. 30% of MSCI Malaysia) driven by increasing credit costs,” the research house was cited, due to declining loan and deposit growth. “Banks are grappling with rising NPLs (expected to peak at 3.1% in 2018),” it said.
Hong Leong Bank rose six sen to RM13.34, Maybank and RHB Cap added four sen each to RM8.80 and RM5.84, CIMB was flat at RM4.69, AmBank shed two sen to RM4.43 and Public Bank lost eight sen to RM18.98.
As for consumer stocks, Nestle rose 80 sen to RM76, Dutch Lady 68 sen to RM54.10, Ajinomoto 54 sen to RM11.94. BAT fell 28 sen to RM46.94.
However, AirAsia fell five sen to RM2.05, AirAsia X unchanged ar 37.5 sen and its warrans edged up 0.5 sen to 25.5 sen.
Among the property companies, IOI Properties fell the most, down 13 sen to RM2.28.
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