KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips eked out minor gains in early Wednesday trade, in line with the key Asian markets while Moody's cut its sovereign credit rating on China.
Low cost carrier AirAsia and AirAsia X
fell in active trade.
At 10am, the KLCI was up 0.53 of a point or 0.03% to 1,767.70. Turnover was 929.41 million shares valued at RM426.47mil. There were 226 gainers, 346 losers and 318 counters unchanged.
Asian shares edged lower in early trade on Wednesday, while the Australian dollar and the offshore Chinese yuan slipped after Moody's cut its sovereign credit rating on China by one notch to an A1 rating from Aa3, Reuters reported.
The ratings agency downgraded China's long-term local and foreign currency issuer ratings on Wednesday, citing expectations that the financial strength of the world's second biggest economy would erode in the coming years. It also changed its outlook for China to stable from negative.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.1% despite modest gains on Wall Street overnight. Japan's Nikkei stock index was up 0.6%.
Oil prices rose on Wednesday, supported by increasing confidence that an OPEC-led production cut aimed at tightening the market would be extended through the rest of 2017 and the first quarter of next year, Reuters reported.
Brent crude futures at 0147 GMT were up 13 cents from their last close at US$54.28 per barrel. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at US$51.58, up 11 cents.
Wing Tai jumped 35 sen to Rm1.53 with 10,200 shares done after it received a takeover offer from its major shareholders, Wing Tai Holdings Ltd and Wing Tai Investment & Development Pte Ltd at RM1.80 a share.
Consumer stocks were higher led by Nestle, up 28 sen to RM82.28 with 100 shares done, BAT 24 sen to RM44.44 and Ajinomoto 14 sen to MRM19.64.
Petronas Gas rose 16 sen to RM19.34 and refiner Hengyaun 1`2 sen to RM5.37.
As for plantations, Genting Plantations rose 14 sen to FM11.72 in thin trade and KL Kepong gained 14 sen to RM24.90.
AirAsiaX fell 6.5 sen to 47 sen and it was the most active with 160 million shares done. Its warrants fell four sen to 24.5 sen while its call warrants C1 gave up three sen to 6.5 sen.
AirAsia X’s 1Q17 group core net profit of RM24mil was more than CIMB Equities Research’s previous full-year forecast of RM13mil as it had underestimated AAX’s charter-flight revenues but it was concerned about multiple headwinds.
The research house said on Wednesday it revised up its FY17F core net profit forecast to RM42.7mil. Consensus was expecting higher FY17F profits versus FY16 so the 1Q would have disappointed, the research house added.
AirAsia fell 19 sen to RM3.06 with 19.1 million shares done as investors took profit. AirAsia call warrants also fell, AirAsia-C51 fell 12.5 sen to 24.5sen and AirAsia-C46 was down 11 sen to 20 sen.
Lafarge was down 19 sen to RM5.18 after it posted a weaker set of financial results while Pos Malaysia fell 12 sen to RM5.43.
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