KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips fell early Thursday, setting the pace for a cautious trading month of February on continued selling pressure on power giant Tenaga Nasional.
At 9.15am, the KLCI was down 1.73 points or 0.1% to 1,669.81 – extending the 14 points decline on Tuesday.
Turnover was 160.71 million shares valued at RM117.63mil. There were 186 gainers, 102 losers and 211 counters unchanged.
Hong Leong Investment Bank Research said ahead of the February reporting season, shares on Bursa Malaysia will likely to be trapped in range-bound consolidation after surging 1.8% in January.
“Overall, trading momentum may switch to lower liners and small caps after their recent retracements,” it said.
Asian shares ticked up while the dollar was capped on Thursday after the US Federal Reserve stuck to its mildly upbeat economic view but gave no hint of any immediate rate hike, Reuters reported.
US oil fell on Thursday after official data showed US crude and gasoline stockpiles rose sharply, although signs that OPEC and other producers are holding the line on output cuts are helping support prices, it said.
Front month futures for West Texas Intermediate were down 34 cents at US$53.54 a barrel at 0016 GMT on Thursday. They rose US$1.07 to close at $53.88 the day before.
Trading of Brent crude had not started. The contract settled up $1.22 a barrel at $56.80 on Wednesday.
At Bursa, Petronas Gas fell 28 sen to RM20.60 while Tenaga lost 24 sen to RM13.16 while Tenaga call warrants C34 tumbled five sen to six sen.
As for banks, Maybank and AmBank fell six sen each to RM8.16 and RM4.52.
KLCC lost 12 sen to RM7.87, F&N shed eight sen to RM23.42 and TimeCom was eight sen lower at RM7.92.
However, BAT recovered slightly to add 66 sen to RM47 and Aeon Credit
gained 36 sen to RM15.98.
Plantations were mostly higher led by United Plantations which rose 50 sen to RM28, KL Kepong added 24 sen to RM24.34 and PPB Group 18 sen higher at RM16.44. Genting Plantation was up 12 sen to RM11.02.
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