KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips closed slightly higher on Thursday on support for key stocks like IHH Healthcare and Genting shares but oil stocks saw volatile trade, especially refiners.
At 5pm, the KLCI was up 1.86 points or 0.1% to 1,777.43. Turnover was 1.64 billion shares valued at RM1.79bil. There were 446 gainers, 347 losers and 422 counters unchanged.
The ringgit edged up 0.02% against the US dollar to 4.2865 while it slipped 0.41% to the pound sterling to 5.4287 and declined 0.06% versus the Singapore unit to 3.0849 and lost 0.18% versus the euro to 4.7873.
Refiners were top losers following the recent decline in oil prices though US light crude managed to bounce up 26 cents to US$42.79 and Brent added 36 cents to US$45.18 later on Thursday.
Petronas Dagangan fell 60 sen to RM24.18 and erased 1.01 points from the KLCI. Petron Malaysia
fell 24 sen to RM7.10 and Hengyuan 23 sen lower to RM4.92.
Bumi Armada closed down one sen to 70 sen, off the earlier low of 67 sen. Sapura Energy ended the day down four sen to RM1.57. While MISC lost seven sen to RM7.42.
However, Petronas Gas rose 20 sen to RM18.90 while Petronas Chemicals was flat at RM7.15.
Tech stocks were among the top gainers with Vitrox up 36 sen to RM7.97, SAM Engineering 24 sen higher at RM7.76 and PMB Tech surged 17 sen to RM2.22.
UEM Edgenta skidded 16 sen to RM2.29.
IHH Healthcare rose nine sen to RM5.99 and nudged the KLCI up 1.26 points,Genting Bhd added 18 sen to RM9.76 and nudged the index up 1.17 points, Genting Malaysia was up six sen to RM5.56.
As for telcos, Axiata fell four sen to RM4.94 and Telekeom five sen lower at RM6.60 while Digi and Maxis were flat at RM4.99 and RM5.59.
Among the banks, RHB Bank gained five sen to RM5.14, Hong Leong Bank two sen higher at RM15.40 while CIMB, Public Bank and AmBank were flat at RM6.65, RM20.38 and RM5.10 respectively and Maybank shed one sen to RM9.58.
Crude palm oil for third-month delivery fell RM5 to RM2,437 per tonne. Sime Darby was up one sen to RM9.60, IOI Corp shed one sen to RM4.48, KL Kepong four sen lower at RM24.86 and PPB 10 sen down at RM16.88.
Among the consumer stocks, Ajinomoto rose 86 sen to RM23.66, BAT added 68 sen to RM44.48, Nestle was up 24 sen to RM83.24 but Dutch Lady lost 20 sen to RM58.20.
Among the key regional markets,
Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.14% to 20,110.51;
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 0.08% to 25,674.53;
CSI 300 edged up 0.07% to 3,590.34;
Shanghai’s Composite Index lost 0.28% to 3,147.45;
Hang Seng China Enterprise eked out a gain of 0.09% to 10,402.76;
Taiwan’s Taiex added 0.48% to 10,399.06;
South Korea’s Kospi added 0.54% to 2,370.37 and
Singapore’s Straits Times Index gained 0.43% to 3,215.55.
Spot gold climbed US$4.94 to US$1,251.42.
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