KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia's blue chips came under profit taking on Tuesday after the strong gains chalked up the previous day with Petronas Gas and IHH Healthcare giving up bulk of their gains.
However, the FBM KLCI ended off the intra-day low of 1,852 on some fund buying of Public Bank, CIMB and Nestle thanks to some foreign fund buying and retail investor support. Net foreign buying was RM31.82mil while retail buying was RM7.08mil while local institutions were net sellers at RM38.9mil.
At 5pm, the KLCI was down 1.33 points or 0.07% to 1,855.99. There were 409 gainers, 556 losers and 346 counters unchanged. Turnover was 2.28 billion shares valued at RM2.10bil.
All key Asian markets including in Asean closed in the red, with Japan's Nikkei 225 down more than 1%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index down 0.78% while South Korea's Kospi lost 1.13%. Singapore's Straits Times Index lost 0.33%.
The ringgit lost ground against the US dollar but gained strength aganst the pound sterling, euro and Singapore dollar.
The local unit fell 0.33% against the greenback to 3.9040 but climbed 0.03% to the pound, advanced 0.09% to the euro to 4.8209 and chalked up a 0.24% gain against the Singapore dollar to 2.9591.
Public Bank gained 10 sen to RM22.08 and pushed the KLCI up 0.69 of a point, CIMB gained three sen to RM7.12, Hong Leong Bank two sen higher at RM18.50 while Maybank and AmBank weer flat at RM10.14 and RM4.64 but RHB Bank lost seven sen to RM5.23.
Refiners fell in volatile trade on profit taking after topping the gainers list earlier on Tuesday, which was the usual pattern for these counters which had attracted heavy trading interest.
Hengyuan fell 90 sen to RM14.12 and Petron 26 sen lower at RM11.62.
Petronas Gas gave up most of Monday's gains, falling 86 sen to RM17.80 and erasing over three points from the KLCI, Petronas Chemical was flat at RM8.10 and Petronas Dagangan added six sen to RM25.30. Enra lost 18 sen to RM2.62.
US light crude oil rose 51 cents to US$62.19 but Brent fell 42 cents to US$65.25.
Crude palm oil for third month delivery fell RM23 to RM2,492 per tonne. Genting Plantations fell 18 sen to RM9.96 and Batu Kawan lost 16 sen to RM19. However, IOI Corp rose two sen to RM4.75, KL Kepong six sen to RM25.50 and PPB Group eight sen to RM17.66.
As for consumer stocks, BAT fell the most, down 34 sen to RM29.90 but Nestle added RM1.10 to RM121.50 and Ajinomoto 20 sen higher at RM20.80 and Carlsberg also up 20 sen to RM18.
Chip-related stocks climbed, as MPI advanced 55 sen to RM9.53 and KESM 38 sen higher at RM20.38.
As for telcos, Telekom lost 12 sen to RM6. Bloomberg reported the shares closed below their 50-day moving average.
In the past five years, Telekom Malaysia crossed below this level 39 times and rose an average 0.3% in the next five days. It advanced 18 times for an average gain of 1.7%, and declined 16 times for an average loss of 1.3%.
“Other technical indicators are mixed. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is neither overbought nor oversold, and the MACD indicates an upward trend,” Bloomberg reported.
Axiata and Maxis rose three sen each to RM5.67 and RM6.11 while Digi shed one sen to RM4.89.
Tenaga lost two sen RM15.72, Genting Bhd
was down eight sen to RM9.13 but Genting Malaysia gained four sen to RM5.50.
Sime Darby and Sime Plantation rose one sen each to RM5.55 and RM2.72 while Sime Property lost two sen to RM1.45.
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