KUALA LUMPUR: Petronas Gas and MISC helped the FBM KLCI climb to the highest since late June while heavy trading in lower liners and penny stocks saw the volume crossing two billion shares at midday on Tuesday.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was up 2.22 points or 0.12% to 1,784.96. Turnover was 2.2 billion shares valued at RM948.21mil. There were 358 gainers, 288 losers and 476 stocks unchanged.
The ringgit weakened 0.17% to the US dollar at 4.2050 and slipped 0.09% to the pound sterling to 5.5403 but edged up 0.07% to the Singapore dollar at 3.1241 and advanced 0.35% versus the euro at 5.0269.
Reuters reported MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose as much as 0.3% to their highest in nearly 10 years, drawing confidence from strong performances on Wall Street in the previous session.
Investors were relieved after damages from Irma, ranked as one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes recorded, turned out to be smaller than expected. Meanwhile, North Korea chose not to conduct any further missile or nuclear tests, it said.
US light crude oil shed five cents to US$48.02 and Brent lost nine cents to US$53.75. Petronas Gas rose 34 sen to RM18.44 and pushed the KLCI up 1.11 points, Petronas Dagangan added two sen to RM24.22 but Petronas Chemicals shed two sen to RM7.45.
Petron broke past the key RM10 level, climbing 29 sen to RM10.12. LNG carrier MISC added nine sen to RM7.38 and nudged the KLCI up 0.66 of a point.
Maybank rose three sen to RM9.65, Hong Leong Bank gained two sen to RM15.90, AmBank and RHB Bank added one sen each to RM4.30 and RM5.04. Public Bank shed two sen to RM20.58, CIMB eased one sen to RM6.76.
Among the heavyweights, Tenaga was flat at RM14.58, IHH Healthcare added four sen to RM5.90, Genting Bhd
gained three sen to RM9.94 and Genting Malaysia fell three sen to RM5.87. Bursa lost 14 sen to RM10.22.
Crude palm oil for third-month delivery fell RM5 to RM2,797 per tonne.KL Kepong added four sen to RM24.78, PPB Group two sen to RMRM16.84, Sime Darby one sen to RM9.15 while IOI Corp was flat at RM4.53.
As for consumer stocks, Nestle added 28 sen to RM85.18, Ajinomoto 26 sen to RM19.38.
Lafarge Malaysia rose 15 sen to RM6.30. CIMB Equities Research is maintaining its Hold call on the cement maker as it expects the positive sentiment on the stock from better demand expectations in 2018 and stabilising competitive landscape to be mitigated by earnings risks in 2H17.
MQTech jumped four sen to none sen with 246.84 million shares done whie the warrants added two sen to five sen. M3Tech-WA gained one sen to six sen and the shares 1.5 sen higher to 11.5 sen.
Dutch Lady fell 50 sen to RM58.80 while BAT shed 12 sen to RM43.66.
Among the chip makers, profit taking saw MPI falling 22 sen to RM13.78 and Unisem eight sen lower at RM4.
Among the key regional markets,
Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1.05% to 19,750.07;
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index shed 0.01% to 27,952.99;
CSI 300 rose 0.18% to 3,832.39;
Shanghai’s Composite Index edged up 0.07% to 3,378.78;
Hang Seng China Enterprise eased 0.06% to 11,213.86;
Taiwan’s Taiex added 0.31% to 10,604.69;
South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.23% to 2,364.39 and
Singapore’s Straits Times Index added 0.16% to 3,233.73.
Spot gold fell US$2.55 to US$1,324.99.
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