KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips slipped early Tuesday, dragged by declines in Petronas Dagangan and MISC while refiner Henyuan came under some selling pressure after posting a set of weaker earnings in the first quarter ended March 31, 2018.
At 9.34am, the KLCI was down 2.09 points or 0.11% to 1,851.49 and it would have slipped further if not for strong buying of Public Bank.
Turnover was 330.92 million shares valued at RM234.25mil. There were 199 gainers, 234 losers and 250 counters unchanged.
Foreign funds continued to reduce their stakes in Malaysian equities with net selling at RM125.4mil on Monday.
Kenanga Research said technically, the underlying trend for the KLCI remains positive, with key SMAs still in a “Golden Cross” state, although weakness in MACD indicators could also suggest consolidation in near-term.
“From here, a decisive breakout from its prior high at near 1,900 (R1) will be an affirmative bullish sign. Conversely, keen investors may look to buy on dips at 1,820 (S1) and 1,800 (S2),” it said.
Reuters reported the US dollar hovered near four-month highs on Tuesday on renewed optimism about global growth as the United States and China agreed to drop their tariff threats, while oil stayed at multi-year peaks over potential sanctions in Venezuela.
While the apparent truce over their trade disagreements bolstered sentiment on Wall Street, it failed to excite stock markets in Asia.
Japan's Nikkei was barely changed while Australian shares fell 0.7% with energy shares the only bright spot on the index. Liquidity remains relatively thin due to holidays in South Korea and Hong Kong. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.1%, the wire reported.
At Bursa, Hengyuan fell the most, down RM1.02 to RM7.27 with 2.02 million shares done.
The proprietary day trading (PDT) and intra-day short-selling (IDSS) was suspended on Tuesday after the share price fell more than 15 sen or 15%.
Petron lost 39 sen to RM8.70. Petronas Dagangan lost 50 sen to RM25.70 and MISC 17 sen lower at RM6.57. PPB Group was down 16 sen to RM19.84.
Latitude Tree lost 35 sen to RM3.26, Allianz 20 sen to RM13.10, Deleum and Scicom 16 sen each to RM1.16 and RM1.85.
My EG Services was the most active, down three sen to 95 sen in active trade with 33.5 million shares done. WCT lost 1.5 sen to 79.5 sen.
Panasonic’s dividend announcement saw its share price jump RM1.48 to RM39.78.
MPI rose 38 sen to RM9.04, Vitrox 19 sen to RM6.19 while UMW 12 sen to RM6.69.
Public Bank added 18 sen to RM15.18.
As for consumer stocks, Apollo added 13 sen to RM4.35 and Nestle 10 sen higher RM148.10.
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