KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian stock market started the week on a downbeat note, with the FBM KLCI falling 1%, weighed down by losses in selected consumer and banking stocks.
At 9.38am, the KLCI was down 1.98 points or 1.01% to 1,772.55. Turnover was 253.82 million shares valued at RM136.94mil. There were 225 gainers, 202 losers and 290 counters unchanged.
Reuters reported that Asian stocks advanced on Monday, taking their cue from Wall Street's strong end to the previous week, while the dollar finally pulled ahead after stronger-than-expected jobs growth in July.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.2% in early trade while Japan's Nikkei 225 added 0.5%.
The dollar steadied early on Monday following strong gains on Friday after data showed U.S. nonfarm payrolls rose by 209,000 jobs last month, and June's employment gain was revised higher.
The ringgit fell 0.09% against the US dollar to 4.2820 from the previous close of 4.295.
At Bursa Malaysia, Fraser & Neave fell 36 sen, or 1.46% to RM24.38. Hong Leong Bank eased 22 sen to RM15.78 while Public Bank fell two sen to RM20.46.
KESM and Carlsberg fell 20 sen and 10 each each to RM14.92 and RM14.80 respectively.
Meanwhile, shares of Malakoff Corp Bhd jumped almost 5% in early trade after announcing that it had resolved a long-standing dispute related to the operations of its power plant with with a consortium of three companies and three other Japanese boiler manufacturers.
The counter gained 4.9%, or five sen to RM1.07 with 17 million shares traded.
Malakoff announced last week that its 90% owned Tanjung Bin Power Sdn Bhd has signed an agreement to resolve the legal suit over its power plant which was affected by boiler tube failures and the inability to meet output conditions.
“While this serves greatly as a price catalyst to Malakoff in the immediate term after its share price had been suppressed severely in the past year, we remain cautious on the IPP’s earnings outlook as the settlement is likely to be one-off and the company did not disclose the settlement amount,” Kenanga Research said.
“Lingering issue remains such as earnings expected to decline in 2H17 onward given that the capacity payment for power purchase agreement (PPA) Extension contract for Segari Energy is expected to decline at least by half in contrast to its old PPA contract,” it added.
So far, the announcement did not disclose the settlement amount, but it was stated in a previous announcement that Malakoff demanded for RM780mil in December 2015.
“We keep our MP/TP: RM1.30/estimates recommendations unchanged for now, pending its upcoming 2Q17 results release at the end of the month,” Kenanga said.
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