KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips extended their gains early Wednesday as investor sentiment was shored up by the return of foreign funds to Bursa and also the firm key Asian markets.
The FBM KLCI was approaching the key 1,800 level. At 9.16am, the KLCI was up 6.06 points or 0.34% to 1,797.15. Turnover was 280.27 million shares valued at RM179.32mil. There were 278 gainers, 87 losers and 215 counters unchanged.
Asian shares rose on Wednesday on the back of firmer Wall Street earnings while expectations for increased Chinese stimulus helped take the edge off wider concerns about the worsening Sino-US trade dispute, Reuters reported.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.22% while Japan's Nikkei ticked up 0.05%.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 0.28% to 2,858, which is just 14 points, or about 0.5%, below its record high marked in January.
On the technical outlook for the KLCI, Kenanga Research said in spite of the gains made, “we are cautious as stochastic indicators had been in the overbought territory without any correction over the past two weeks. A short-term consolidation could be necessary before a continuation,” it said.
“A correction may see the index fall to its support levels at 1,750 (S1) and 1,720 (S2). Should there be a positive turnaround, the index may head back upwards to 1,800 (R1) and even 1,830 (R2),” it said.
Among plantations, Far East continued its advance, up 70 sen to RM13.90 while Riverview gained 14 sen to RM3.83 and PPB Group 14 sen to RM16.88.
Hartalega
added 22 sen to RM6.39 after its strong earnings, MAHB recovered one third of the previous day’s losses to add 14 sen to RM9.49 while Petronas Gas was eight sen higher at RM19.08 but with just 100 shares done.
Vitrox rose 11 sen to RM6.60 as analysts were upbeat about its earnings outlook. Ann Joo, which has been laying low in recent months, bounced eight sen to RM2.06.
MRCB and MY EG rose three sen each to 82.5 sen and RM1.22.
BAT fell the most, down 26 sen to RM34.10, Nestle 20 senn to RM147.80.
KL Kepong slid 24 sen to RM24.36 with 100 shares done and Red Ideas lost 8.5 sen to 33 sen while IHH gave up five sen to RM5.91.
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