Bears on the prowl on Bursa Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips fell in early Wednesday trade in the absence of strong trading interest as investors await the next international reserve data to be released by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM).
At 10am, the FBM KLCI was down 0.51 of a point or 0.03% to 1,629.22. Turnover was 222.27 million shares valued at RM119.56mil. There were 138 gainers, 205 losers and 252 counters unchanged.
StarBiz reported all eyes are on the BNM’s forex reserves to determine how much has been used to defend the ringgit against the US dollar since Nov 11. The ringgit depreciated steeply against the greenback since the surprise election of Donald Trump on Nov 8.
The Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER) said on Tuesday the ringgit's depreciation is temporary and reiterated that the local note's intrinsic value against the US dollar should be at around 4.05 to 4.10.
Among the KLCI stocks, BAT fell 30 sen to RM44.60 and PPB Group was down 14 sen to RM15.86.
Pharmaniaga
fell 30 sen to RM5.20 while Enra was down 13 sen to RM2.10, Spritzer gave up 12 sen to RM2.30 while MSC was down 10 sen to RM3.87.
Stone Master continued its slide, tumbling 8.5 sen to 10.5 sen.
Carlsberg fell 12 sen RM13.78 but Dutch Lady added 26 sen to RM56, Ajinomoto 20 sen higher to RM13.68 while Heineken gained eight sen to RM16.58.
Petronas Dagangan advanced 12 sen to RM23.28 and Shell Refining 11 sen to RM2.34.
Condom maker Karex was up six sen to RM2.49.
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