KLCI firmer at midday, ringgit climbs

KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips underpinned the FBM KLCI’s advance at midday on Monday while the ringgit firmed up against the US dollar.

At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was up marginally by 1.71 points, or 0.11% to 1,600.03. The benchmark index opened 6.12 points higher at 1,604.44 this morning. 

Turnover stood at 836.84 million units worth RM486.48mil. Losers led gainers 411 to 227 while 325 counters unchanged.

At midday, the ringgit, rose 0.05% to 4.1860 against the US dollar. The ringgit opened marginally higher against the US dollar today on improved oil prices, recovering some demand for the local note. 

The local currency was down 0.13% against the euro at 4.6933. It also fell 0.26% against the pound sterling at 5.3311 and 0.13% against the Singapore dollar at 3.0471.

“Malaysia’s key index, the KLCI, has been the worst performers this year as issues concerning earnings growth, politics and ringgit dominate, hence causing a significant reversal in foreign flows since February as discussed above,” BIMB Securities Research said in its weekly review. 

“The FBM70 which have been up on tear this year has also given back its double-digit gains and is now precariously 4% tear-to-date. This movement is in tandem with a slowing net local retail buying averaging slightly above RM50mil for the last 2 weeks. 

“We expect the completion of 1Q2019 corporate earnings this week to have some influence on the movements of mid-cap stocks for the rest of the second quarter period,” BIMB said. 

At Bursa Malaysia, Nestle rose 50 sen to RM146.60, F&N added 24 sen to RM33.84 and United Plantations gained 16 sen to RM26.50.

MISC, which rose 18 sen to RM6.70, pushed the index up by 1.2529. Digi gained eight sen to RM4.68, nudging the index up by 0.9699 while Public Bank gained eight sen to RM22.60, lifting the index by 0.4843.

Hong Leong Industries fell the most, down 32 sen to RM10.54 while Merge Energy shed 24 sen to 99 sen and Hengyuan was 21 sen lower at RM5.57.

Brent crude was last traded at US$68.66 per barrel while US crude traded at US$58.36 per barrel.

Among the key regional markets:

Japan’s Nikkei 225 is up 0.27% to 21,174.81;

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index is down 0.6% to 27,188.85;

Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.26% to 2,860.50;

Taiwan’s Taiex gained 0.03% to 10,331.67;

South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.27% to 2,039.86 and;

Singapore’s Straits Times Index is down 0.26% to 3,161.59 points.