KLCI rallies on Friday, foreign fund net buyers at RM616m

KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips continued to chalk up gains early Friday, with fund buying focusing on Public Bank and Petronas Chemicals, as investor sentiment remained firm depsite the mixed performance on Wall Street.

At 9.06am, the FBM KLCI was up 4.53 points or 0.26% to 1,741.67. Turnover was 237.70 million shares valued at RM111.45mil. Advancers led decliners 220 to 90 while 246 counters were unchanged.

Foreign funds were net buyers on Thursday at net RM616mil while local institutions were net sellers at RM538.9mil and retail investors took profit also with net selling at RM77.1mil.

Reuters reported Asian stocks crawled higher in early trade on Friday, set for its best week since September, while the dollar continued the slide that began after the Federal Reserve indicated it was unlikely to speed up monetary tightening.

Kenanga Investment Bank Research said following the KLCI's surge on Thursday, it said chart-wise, the index had staged a technical gap-up above its resistance-turned-support level of 1,730 (S1) on high trading volume. 

“The bullish price action is likely to gear the underlying index further up, testing its immediate resistance level of 1,744 (R1) next and probably 1,750 (R2) further. Key supports are now found at 1,730 (S1) followed by 1,720 (S2) further south,” it said.

Among the KLCI stocks, Public Bank rose 16 sen to RM20.04, Petronas Chemicals added 10 sen to RM7.38 and PPB Group edged up eight sen to RM16.86 and UMW gained six sen to RM6.10,” it said.

Teck Guan Perdana added 16 sen to RM2.62,Hai-O 11 sen to RM4.87 and F&N six sen to RM24.04.

However, Rohas Tecnic which took over the listing status of Tecnic Group fell 17 sen to 95 sen with 302,600 shares done. Maxis shed seven sen to RM6.33 while BToto and IHH lost four sen each at RM2.94 and RM6.03.