KLCI lifted by TNB, oil prices on the rise

KUALA LUMPUR: Tenaga Nasional pulled the FBM KLCI into positive territory in Monday morning trade following a 56 sen jump to RM12.74.

The heavyweight counter single-handedly added over four points to the local benchmark index that saw volatile early-morning trading.

At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was up 4.03 points to 1,642.66. Trading volume was uted with 928.19 million shares traded valued at RM547.51 mil. Decliners outpaced gainers 391 to 244 and 331 counters were unchanged.

Apart from the strong performance by Tenaga, there was a generally weak performance among the index heavyweights. 

Maxis fell nine sen to RM5.49, Digi dropped six sen to RM4.81 and MISC shed seven sen to RM7.04. 

Some of the stocks seeing positive traction were Nestle rising 90 sen to RM148.90, Petronas Gas adding eight sen to RM17.68 and IOI climbing four sen to RM4.21.

The most active counters on Bursa Malaysia were Greatec adding four sen to 85 sen, Ekovest rising one sen to 84 sen and Lambo gaining 0.5 sen to 6.5 sen.

Over the region, Hong Kong's stock market jumped after its government backed down from an extradition bill. The Hang Seng Index recovered 0.7% after three days of decline amid mass protests in the city.

The Shanghai Composite Index fell marginally after spending the majority of the morning in positive territory. Meanwhile, Japan's Nikkei rose 0.1% while South Korea's Kospi dropped 0.2%.

Oil prices received a lift on Monday after Washington committed itself to safe navigation in the MIddle East following attacks on oil tankers last week.

US crude rose five cents US$52.56 a barrel and Brent crude gained 11 cents to US$62.12 a barrel.

In currencies, the ringgit slipped 0.25% against the greenback to 4.1768. It rose 0.4% to 5.2589 and 0.1% to 3.0470.