KLCI slides on TNB, Maybank; oil prices rebound

KUALA LUMPUR: A weaker outlook on China's economic growth pulled down regional market performance on Monday, triggering a slide on Bursa Malaysia.

At 12.30pm, the FBM KL was down 5.3 points to 1,702.79.  Turnover was 868.2 million shares valued at RM541.46mil.

There were 349 decliners versus 251 gainers and 299 counters unchanged.

Tenaga Nasional had the biggest slide in the morning session, falling 18 sen to RM14.82. Maybank was also in the red with an eight sen decline to  RM9.21 while Sime Darby Plantation dropped 12 sen to RM5.13.

MISC helped to pare losses on the index, rebounding 30 sen to RM6.75 following a sharp decline on Friday.

Hong Leong Bank also saw positive momentum, gaining 32 sen to RM20.94.

Seeing heavy investor interest, Tatt Giap, which had been issued with an unusual market activity query on Friday  continued to push higher. It rose 2.5 sen to 23.5 sen.

Sapura Energy topped the list of most active counters with a 0.5 sen increase to 38 sen on news of the 50% stake sale of its upstream assets to OMV.

Oil prices rebounded on Monday after a sharp drop in the previous week as Saudi Arabia announced plans to reduce supply to world markets by 500,000 barrels per day or 0.5% of total global supply, in December.

WTI crude rose 78 cents to US$60.97 a barrel while Brent crude climbed US$1.22 to US$71.40 a barrel.

In currencies, the ringgit slid 0.16% against the US dollar to 4.1855. It fell 0.4% against the pound sterling at 5.4127 and marginally against the Singapore dollar at 3.0343.