KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips closed mostly lower on Tuesday on profit taking especially of CIMB Group
and IHH Healthcare and Genting Malaysia as investors ahead of the outcome of the US Fderal Reserve meeting this week.
At 5pm, the KLCI was down seven points or 0.39% to 1,776.66. Turnover was 2.01 billion shares valued at RM1.92bil. There were 309 gainers, 485 losers and 453 counters unchanged.
The ringgit shed 0.07% to the US dollar to 4.1915 and fell 0.45% to the euro at 5.0244. It rose 0.52% to the pound sterling to 5.6530 and eked out a gain of 0.08% to the Singapore dollar at 3.1089.
Reuters reported said Hong Kong stocks dipped on Tuesday as traders awaited the Federal Reserve's policy meeting this week and as recent China economic data kept risk appetite subdued, defying Wall Street's bullish lead.
China stocks slid, with traders awaiting clues on US monetary policy from the Federal Reserve meeting and as caution prevailed over potentially tight liquidity before the National Day holiday.
As for banks, CIMB fell 23 sen to RM6.46 and erased 3.5 points from the KLCI, AmBank and Hong Leong Bank lost two sen each to RM4.49 and RM15.88 but RHB Bank added five sen to RM5.13, Public Bank added two sen to RM20.60 and Maybank one sen to RM9.81.
MAHB lost 18 sen to RM8.69, IHH Healthcare fell seven sen to RM5.82, Genting Malaysia nine sen to RM5.61 while Tenaga and Genting Bhd were two sen lower at RM14.56 and RM9.84.
Crude palm oil fell RM25 to RM2,780 per tonne. Among the plantations, KL Kepong lost 10 sen to RM24.50, IOI Corp fell three sen to RM4.65, PPB Group two sen to RM16.68 and Sime Darby one sen to RM9.18.
US light crude oil added 42 cents to US$50.33 and Brent rose 27 cents to US$55.75.
Penny oil and gas related stocks rose in active trade. Hubline and UMW-OG added 0.5 sen to 6.5 sen and 31 sen. KNM gained 1.5 sen to 25.5 sen.
Petronas Chemicals added one sen to RM7.36, Petronas Dagangan two sen lower at RM24.24 and Petronas Gas four sen down at RM18.30.
Maxis rose two sen to RM5.76, Axiata one sen to RM5.06, Telekom was flat at RM6.40 and Digi shed one sen to RM4.86. Time dotCom lost 21 sen to RM9.10
Bison Consolidated, the myNEWS.com convenience store operator fell 18 sen to RM2.35.
As for chip maker Unisem fell 17 sen to RM3.85
Scientex fell 11 sen to RM8.60 despite posting a stronger set of financial results. It announced a dividend of 10 sen a share.
Insurers LPI and Allianz were among the top gainers. LPI added 40 sen to RM17.90 and Allianz 34 sen to RM14.86.
Lii Hen jumped 18 sen to RM3.49 after it was upgraded. HLIB Research said it likes Lii Hen due to its strong balance sheet (net cash per share 53.8 sen as at June 30, 2017), high dividend payout (dividend yield of 7.9%) and its ongoing effort to adopt effective cost management.
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