KUALA LUMPUR: Some selling of Public Bank pushed the FBM KLCI lower in early Monday trade while Utusan Malaysia jumped after its executive chairman bought a controlling stake in the publishing company.
At 9.26am, the KLCI was down 1.43 points or 0.08% to 1,685.09. Turnover was 394.56 million shares valued at RM128.61mil. There were 193 gainers, 131 losers and 240 counters unchanged.
Crude prices fell by around 1% as US drilling activity picked up and as Russia's biggest oil producer pressured President Vladimir Putin to end the supply cut deal with Middle East-dominated producer club Opec, Reuters reported.
US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 56 cents to US$52.16 per barrel while Brent lost 53 cents to US$61.57 a barrel.
Nestle was the top loser, down 70 sen to RM148.30 with 200 shares done, Time dotCom lost 16 sen to RM8.20, UMS 10 sen to RM2.40 while Petronas Gas shed six sen to RM18 with 100 shares done.
Public Bank and Bintulu Port lost six sen each to RM28.86 and RM4.44 while QL Resources shed five sen to RM6.90.
Bumi Armada
shed 0.5 sen to 23 and it was the most active with 42.64 million shares done.
Utusan rose eight sen to 19.5 sen after its executive chairman Datuk Abd Aziz Sheikh Fadzir emerged as the single largest shareholder in the newspaper publisher when he acquired a 31.6% stake on Friday.
He acquired the stake, comprising of 35 million shares, at 19 sen each, for a total of RM6.65mil. This was 7.5 sen or 65.2% over the current price of 11.5 sen last Friday.
Heineken rose 28 sen to RM21.20, BAT 26 sen to RM37.46, Aeon Credit 14 sen to RM16.34 and MBM Resources 10 sen to RM2.62.
KLCC was up nine sen to RM7.88, HL Bank eight sen to RM20.98 and Naim 6.5 sen to 68 sen.
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