Cement stocks rally on ECRL prospects, Greatech surges on debut

KUALA LUMPUR: Shares of cement players Lafarge Cement and Tasek rallied on Thursday on the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) projects while Greatech surged on its trading debut on the ACE Market.

More than 1,000 firms are vying for a share of the 40% civil works portion of the ECRL, sending construction stocks IJM and Gamuda higher. 

A total of 1,321 local firms have submitted their interest over the course of the pre-qualification exercise held on May 29 and 30, for a share of the civil works portion of the RM44bil mega project.

However, the FBM KLCI closed lower, tracking the mixed key Asian markets, with Tenaga Nasional and Genting among the top losers. 

At 5pm, the KLCI was down 7.0 points or 0.42% to 1,643.74. Turnover was 2.04 billion shares valued at RM1.98bil. There were 397 gainers, 379 losers and 394 counters unchanged.

Lafarge closed 56 sen up to RM4.34 while Tasek ended the day sen higher by 14 sen to RM5.66. 

Infrastructure companies IJM and Gamuda also chalked up some gains. IJM rose two sen to RM2.32 and Gamuda four sen higher at RM3.50.

Meanwhile, Greatech ended its first trading day on a strong note, up 13 sen to 74 sen with 192.72 million shares done. 

It outperformed the larger companies such as poultry player Leong Hup International and precision machining HPMT which were listed on the Main Board. LHI closed unchanged at RM1.07 – but below the offer price of RM1.10. HPMT eked out a 0.5 sen gain to 50.5 sen comapred with the offer price of 56 sen.

Weighing on the KLCI was Tenaga, which fell 22 sen to RM12.32 and erased 2.17 points.

Genting fell 14 sen to RM6.48 and wiped out 0.94 of a point and IHH shed five sen to RM5.63, MISC seven sen to RM7.13 while GentingM was down two sen to RM3.20.

Among the banks, Maybank lost four sen to RM8.96 and erasing 0.78 of a point, Public Bank gave up six sen to RM23.42, AmBank and HLBank two sen each to RM4.43 and RM18.90 while RHB Bank shed a sen to RM5.70 but CIMB was two sen higher at RM5.32.

Crude palm oil for third month delivery rose RM50 to RM2,018. As for plantations, Sime Plantation gained nine sen to RM4.64 and added 1.07 points, KL Kepong lost four sen to RM24.56, PPB Group six sen lower at RM18.64 while IOI Corp lost six sen to RM4.24.

Oil and gas stocks were mixed after a jump in crude oil where US light crude surged US$1.54 to US$52.68 and Brent surged US$2.16 to US$62.13.

Petronas Chemical fell two sen to RM8.31, Petronas Gas four sen lower at RM17.76 but Petronas Dagangan jumped 28 sen to RM25.60. Dialog inched up one sen to RM3.27.

The ringgit weakened 0.14% against the US dollar to 4.1645 but against the pound sterling, it added 0.48% to 5.2754. It rose 0.28% to the euro to 4.7017 and inche dup 0.06% to the Singapore dollar to 3.0475.