KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips continued to recover early Wednesday for the second day after Monday’s tumble, with Petronas Gas and Hong Leong Bank supporting the FBM KLCI, while the Ringgit firmed up against the US dollar.
At 10am, the KLCI was up 3.43 points or 0.21% to 1,666.46. Turnover was 531.27 million shares valued at RM213.22mil. There were 261 gainers, 207 losers and 283 counters unchanged.
The Ringgit rose 0.36% to 4.4440 against the dollar from the previous close of 4.4600.Year-to-date, the ringgit is up 0.91% to the greenback.
Reuters reported the US dollar index wallowed near six-week lows on Wednesday, pressured by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's comments showing concern over the currency's strength, while sterling edged down after posting its biggest one-day gain since at least 1998 after British Prime Minister Theresa May outlined her “Brexit” plans.
Crude oil futures edged higher on Wednesday with a weaker dollar underpinning the market, although gains were limited by expectations that U.S. producers would boost output, Reuters added.
US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures were trading up three cents at US$52.51 per barrel at 0058 GMT. Brent crude oil, the international benchmark for oil prices, was up four cents US$55.51 a barrel.
Petronas Gas rose 22 sen to RM20.12 while Hong Leong Bank added eight sen to RM13.32.
Ekovest added nine sen to RM2.61 with 3.07 million shares done after it announced plans to build a RM6.32bil expressway that consists of Kampung Baru Link, Istana Link and Kapar Link Expressway in the Klang Valley. The new expressway will be linked to the existing DUKE highway.
Toyo Ink added 9.5 sen to 60 sen while KESM and Solid Automotive added eight sen each to RM10.08 and RM1.34.
Matang, which was listed on Tuesday, was the most active with 44.1 million shares done. It was flat at 14 sen.
BAT fell the most, down 16 sen to RM44.84 with 2,200 shares done.
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