For the month, the FBM KLCI is down 3.18% and year-to-date, it is down 8.02%.
KUALA LUMPUR: Trading volume on Bursa Malaysia continued to be heavy on Tuesday, exceeding the four billion shares mark again, on churning of penny stocks and lower liners including Priceworth, MUI and Olympia.
At 5pm, the KLCI was down 3.68 points or 0.21% to 1,735.84. Turnover was 4.23 billion shares -- the recent high was on April 7 when volume hit 5.22 billion units.
Total value was RM2.57bil, reflecting the profit taking on blue chips and rotation to cheaper stocks. The broader market was cautious, as there were 358 gainers, 569 losers and 364 counters unchanged.
Reuters reported that nervous investors turned to the safety of gold, government bonds and the yen on Tuesday as concerns mounted about possible US military strikes in the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula.
Signals from Washington that it was prepared to take further action against the Syrian government if it thought it was using chemical weapons was the main driver, with uncertainty about forthcoming elections in France also simmering, the report said.
The ringgit firmed up against the US dollar at 4.4335 from 4.4360 the previous day while it was flat against the Singapore dollar at 3.1553 but slipped against the pound sterling to 5.5059 compared with 5.5028 while it weakened against the Euro to 4.6988 from 4.6962.
At Bursa, Priceworth was the most active with 249.20 million shares, rising four sen to 24 sen. The low-profile MUI Industries jumped nine sen to 28 sen with 248.88 miilion shares done on expectations of some monetisation of its assets.
Olympia rode on the coat-tail of the heavy trading action, rising two sen to 17.5 sen. DneX-WD was up 1.5 sen to 30 sen while the shares added 1.5 sen also to 47.5 sen.
REV Asia jumped 16 sen to RM1.08 with 8.48 million shares done. It had proposed a dividend in specie of 134.64 million shares of ICQ Holdings Bhd to shareholders of the company. The ex-date for the dividend is April 21.
IWCity rose 20 sen to RM3.08 after the recent coprorate news about the takeover by its parent.
Crude palm oil rebounded RM29 to RM2,622 per tonne after slumping to a low of RM2,593 per tonne earlier.
Despite the rebound, investors stayed on the sidelines with Far East down 31 sen to RM8.69, IOI Corp was nine sen lower at RM4.50 and erased nearly one point from the KLCI, PPB Group lost 10 sen to RM16.54, Sime Darby shed two sen to RM9.32 while KL Kepong was flat at RM24.46.
US light crude oil fell 16 cents to US$52.92 and Brent was down 13 cents to US$55.85. Petronas Chemicals fell 10 sen and wiped out 1.35 points from the KLCI, Petronas Dagangan added four sen to RM24.04 while Petronas Gas was flat at RM19.68. Small cap Enra added 11 sen to RM2.78 with 1,400 shares done.
Top performer burn-in tester KESM fell 28 sen to RM12.48 with 18,700 shares done.
Among the banks and financial stocks, HLFG fell 16 sen to RM16.24, AmBank and RHB Bank five sen lower at RM4.85 and RM5.19, Maybank shed one sen to RM8.98, Cimb eased one sen to RM5.46 while Public Bank was flat at RM19.98. Hong Leong Bank added four sen to RM13.70.
Other KLCI stocks which closed lower were KLCC, down 16 sen to RM7.84 and Bursa 14 sen down at RM9.55. However, Genting rose five sen to RM9.32, Tenaga two sen higher at RM13.72.
Maxis added 0.38 of a point to the KLCI when it rose three sen to RM6.37, Telekom two sen higehr at RM6.35, Digi shed one sen to RM5.09 and Axiata eased two sen to RM5.08.
Among the key regional markets,
Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.27% to 18,747.87;
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index lost 0.72% to 24,088.46;
CSI 300 rose 0.32% to 3,516.89;
Shanghai’s Composite Index added 0.6% to 3,288.97;
Hang Seng China Enterprise lost 0.86% to 10,165.98;
Taiwan’s Taiex gave up 0.51% to 9,832.42;
South Korea’s Kospi surrended 0.44% to 2,123.85 and
Singapore’s Straits Times Index was 0.21% lower at 3,174.75.
Spot gold rose US$2.03 to US$1,256.70.
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