KUALA LUMPUR: Power giant Tenaga Nasional put the FBM KLCI on a steady path early Wednesday as investors awaited fresh leads from institutional players after the overnight rally on Wall Street.
At 9.14am, the FBM KLCI was just up 0.09 point or 0.01% to 1,687.50. Turnover was 221.25 million shares valued at RM90.87mil. There were 194 gainers, 86 losers and 196 counters unchanged.
Asian stocks pulled ahead and safe-haven government bonds came under further pressure on optimism the United States and China might be able to hammer out a deal to resolve their nearly year-long trade dispute, Reuters reported.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.2%. South Korea's KOSPI gained 0.5% and Japan's Nikkei climbed 1%.
However, Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA cautioned investors over the overnight jump on Wall Street after a tentative deal averting a US government shutdown was reached and positive noise from the ongoing US-China trade talks.
“We would expect this theme to flow through to Asia’s markets today with regional currencies rallying and a positive tone for the local stock markets.
“One note of caution is that President Trump has not indicated whether he will accept the Republican/Democrat compromise. Experience should teach us predictability is not often associated with the president and should he say no, the global rally could come to an abrupt halt,” he said.
At Bursa, Tenaga rose six sen to RM13.16 with 50,300 shares done. United Plantations rose 70 sen to RM27, Takaful eight sen to RM4.58 and Serba Dinamik
seven sen to RM3.78.
E&O rose 2.5 sen to 87.5 sen with 11.2 million shares done after the previous day’s sellldown following its RM550.3mil cash call.
Velesto rose two sen to 22.5 sen, Barakah one sen to 14.5 sen and VS Industry 1.5 sen to 92 sen.
Holding back the KLCI were MAHB, Petronas Dagangan, MISC, Public Bank and Maybank.
MAHB lost 10 sen to RM7.89with 97,800 shares done. Petronas Dagangan lost eight sen to RM26.04 and MISC seven sen to RM6.73 with just 100 shares each.
Public Bank fell six sen to RM24.90, LPI four sen to RM16.88 and Maybank three sen to RM9.53.
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