KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips ended Tuesday morning off their day's best, with the FBM KLCI fiving up half of the gains, as penny stocks and lower liners attracted heavy trading interest but the weaker ringgit cast a dampener on investor sentiment.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was up 4.69 points or 0.27% to 1,749.64.Turnover surged to 1.73 billion shares valued at RM953.66mil. There were 404 gainers, 314 losers and 418 stocks unchanged.
Asian stocks advanced on Tuesday after Wall Street steadied and the dollar bounced from a four-month-low, as anxiety over Donald Trump's setback on healthcare reform gave way to tentative hopes for the US President's planned stimulus policies. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.6%.
The ringgit weakened against the major currencies, sliding to 4.4175 against the US dollar from the previous close of 4.4135, down to 5.5523 against the pound sterling from 5.5412 and weakened to 3.1694 against the Singapore dollar from 3.1639. It was lower against the Euro at 4.8001 from 4.7879.
However, a slight recovery in oil prices helped shore up buying of Petronas linked stocks. US light crude oil rose 26 cents to US$47.99 and Brent gained 22 cents to US$50.97.
Petronas Chemicals rose eight sen to RM7.66 and added 1.05 points to the KLCI. Petronas Gas gained 12 sen to RM19.84 and Pertronas Dagangan was up 10 sen to RM23.88. Petron Malaysia
added 21 sen to RM5.98.
Semiconductor related stocks were among the top gainers, with burn-in tester KESM up 28 sen to RM11.74, MPI 18 sen to RM11.98 and Globetronics 15 sen higher at RM5.19.
Genting Bhd rose 15 sen to RM9.65 and nudged the KLCI up 0.93 of a point while Genting Malaysia dded five sen to RM5.70, Tenaga rose two sen to RM13.72 and MISC three sen up at RM7.40.
As for banks, Hong Leong Bank was the top gainer, up 20 sen to RM13.66 and pushed the KLCI up 0.71 point, AmBank gained 13 sen to RM4.86, RHB Bank added six sen to RM5.02 and Public Bank rose two sen to RM19.94 but Maybank shed one sen to RM8.96 and CIMB five sen lower at RM5.57.
Crude palm oil for third-month delivery rose RM35 to RM2,730 per tonne. KL Kepong rose 10 sen to RM24.80 and PPB Group was flat at RM16.66 but IOI Corp shed one sen to RM4.69 and Sime Darby lost six sen to RM9.39.
Dataprep was the most active with 54.45 million shares done, surging 6.5 sen to 61.5 sen.
Maybulk, riding the rebound in the Baltic Dry Index as China imports more coal and iron ore, rose 3.5 sen to 80 sen.
Among the key regional markets,
Japan’s Nikkei 225 recovered 1.01% to 19,177.10;
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.51% to 24,317.93;
CSI 300 slipped 0.19% to 3,471.49;
Shanghai’s Composite Index lost 0.29% to 3,257.38;
Hang Seng China Enterprise rose 0.8% to 10,444.48;
Taiwan’s Taiex fell 0.62% to 9,815.67;
South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.15% to 2,158.96; and
Singapore’s Straits Times Index advanced 0.76% to 3,150.58.
Spot gold fell 44 cents to US$1,254.41.
Limited time offer:
Just RM5 per month.
