KUALA LUMPUR: The local bourse started the day on a strong note with strong gains from Tenaga Nasional.
Wall Street put in a good performance overnight as proposals for coporate tax cuts came closer to fruition, lending firmness to Asian markets despite China's lacklustre performance and news reports of another North Korean missile test.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was 2.94 points higher to 1,717.36 points. Turnover was 890.87 million shares with a value of RM1.03bil. There were 332 decliners to 268 advancers and 501 counters unchanged.
Tenanga Nasional rose 36 sen to RM15.34 and brought the KLCI 3.3579 points higher. Another leading gainer was Petronas Chemicals, rising nine sen to RM7.47.
IOI Corp rose two sen to RM4.44 while Digi gained two sen to RM4.58 and Axiata put on two sen to RM5.32.
CIMB added two sen to RM5.95 on an earnings anncouncement that saw its core net profits grow a modest 2.7% on-quarter to RM1.13bil.
“Post-3QFY17 results, we have fine tuned our net profit forecast for FY17/18/19 by 0.2%/2.0%/3.2% respectively after factoring in higher estimates for Islamic banking income and credit cost,” AmInvestment Research said in its morning research note.
Among decliners on the index, Maybank fell one sen to RM9.19, Public Bank dropped four sen to RM20.24 and IHH Healthcare slipped one sen to RM5.64.
On the wider market, Dutch Lady
rose 80 sen to RM60.20, Gamuda put on 12 sen to RM4.74 and Wellcall Holdings rose 15 sen to RM1.61.
Gamuda announced on Tuesday that it was collaborating with Malaysian Resources Corp in vying for the project delivery partner job for the civil infrastructure works of the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail.
Stocks that slipped on Bursa included Genting Plantations, which fell 12 sen to RM10.36; PPB which dipped 12 sen to RM16.52 and Enra Group, which dropped 19 sen to RM2.89.
Oil prices slipped as investors continued to weigh in on the likelihood of an extension to supply cuts in crude oil on Thursday. In the lead-up to the Opec meeting, there is mounting speculation over whether Opec and Russia will agree to a deal on production cuts.
Brent crude dropped 47 cents to US$63.14 a barrel while a rise US crude oil inventories brought West Texas Intermediate crude futures lower by 31 cents to US$57.68 a barrel.
In currencies, the ringgit fell against major currencies following a rally on Tuesday. The local note weakened 0.09% against the greenback at 4.1060. It fell 0.48% against the pound sterling at 5.4871 and slipped 0.02% against the Singapore dollar at 3.0504.
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