KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips staged a mild rebound on Friday after the profit-taking by local institutions the previous day while Ekovest managed to eke out some gains after it assured investors the fundamentals were solid.
At 10.30am, the KLCI was up 2.91 points or 0.17% to 1,761.58. Turnover was 875.59 million shares valued at RM470.55mil. There were 446 gainers, 191 losers and 340 counters unchanged.
The ringgit weakened against the US dollar, sliding 0.17% to 4.334 from 4.326 but year-to-date, it was up 3.48% to 4.334 from 4.4845.
Asian stocks declined for a third consecutive day on Friday as fresh falls in commodities raised concerns about the health of the global economy, though the euro bucked the broad weakness on receding concerns about France's presidential election, Reuters reported.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.4 percent on Friday and was trading at its lowest level since April 25.
Oil prices were marooned near five months lows on Friday after a near 5 percent fall in the previous session on concerns over rising U.S. supply, wiping out all of the price gains since OPEC's move to curb output, Reuters said.
Tumbling prices would likely force OPEC members to extend production cuts later this month, but the prospect for deeper cuts appeared slim, analysts said.
Brent crude futures inched up three cents at US$48.41 per barrel while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures gained one cent to US$45.53.
At Bursa, Ekovest added eight sen to RM1.25 with nearly 50 million shares done after hitting limmit-down early Thursday.
MPI was the top gainer, up 48 sen to RM12.58, SAM Engineering gained 23 sen to RM6.74 while JHM added 15 sen to RM4.52. KESM shed six sen to RM12.66.
Low profile ECM Libra
jumped 22 sen to 62.5 sen after it announced its proposed acquisition.
As for consumer stocks, Nestle acded 20 sen to RM82.40 while BAT and Ajinomoto gained 14 sen to RM45.54 and RM18.50 but Dutch Lady fell eight sen to RM58.70 . MSM added 16 sen to RM4.60 in thin trade.
Tan Chong fell five sen to RM1.85 after it posted a wider core net loss on a year-on-year basis in 1Q17 due to weak sales performance and the results fell short of both CIMB Equities Research and consensus expectations.
TCM also recorded a sequentially larger core net loss at RM31.4mil in 1Q17 vs RM1.2mil in 4Q16 due to on-going margin compression from forex volatility and lower sales.
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