KLCI continues its upward trend on Petronas Gas, Genting gains

KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips climbed in early Friday trade on gains by Petronas Gas and Genting Bhd while crude oil prices inched higher.

At 9.38am, the KLCI was up 2.73 points or 0.15% to 1,778.12. Turnover was 534.77 million shares valued at RM200mil. There were 264 gainers, 233 losers and 320 counters unchanged.

Asian shares inched up Friday, hobbled by a downbeat day on Wall Street but still on track for weekly rises, while oil prices extended gains on hopes for output cuts, Reuters reported.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.1%, shy of nearly two-year highs probed in the previous session but still up 1.8% for the week.

Kenanga Investment Bank Research, in its technical outlook for the KLCI, said chart-wise, the primary trend of the underlying index is still up as it is well supported by all its key moving averages. 

“Nonetheless, the local bourse is still capped below the psychological 1,780 level while key momentum indicators such as daily RSI and Stochastic are observed to be overbought at this juncture, suggesting that upside could be limited from here. 

“Thus we view that the KLCI is likely trade within a range of 1,768-1,780 later today, where resistance levels are now seen at 1,780 (R1)/1,800 (R2) while support levels are tied at 1,768 (S1)/1,743 (S2),” it said.

Oil prices were stable on Friday as traders expected Opec-led production cuts to extend beyond the middle of this year, and as US crude inventories fell to their lowest levels since February, Reuters reported.

Brent crude futures rose five cents to US$50.82 per barrel while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures added six cents to US$47.89.

Petron Malaysia and Hengyuan, formerly Shell Refining, attracted strong retail interest. Petron rose 41 sen to RM8.89 and Hengyuan was up 18 sen to  RM4.42.

Petronas Gas added 30 sen to RM19.42, MPI 18 sen to RM13.06 and Genting Bhd 10 sen higher at RM9.83.

However, Petronas Gas fell nine sen to RM7.23, Geshen nine sen lower  at RM2.31, Kossan and CAM Cakaran seven sen down at RM6.31 and RM3.03.