Tenaga climbs to over one-year high, underpins KLCI meagre gains

KUALA LUMPUR: Local fund buying of Tenaga Nasional helped the FBM KLCI chalk up meagre gains on Tuesday as trading on Bursa Malaysia remained lacklustre, mirroring the cautious key Asian markets.

The KLCI was trading mostly in the red as whatever gains were erased by profit taking before the late push helped tip the 30-stock index into the positive territory.

At 5pm, the KLCI closed up 0.48 of a point or 0.03% to 1,676.61. Turnover was 1.78 billion shares valued at RM1.75bil. There were 364 gainers, 413 losers and 394 counters unchanged.

Hong Kong shares closed weaker, tracking markets across Asia and Mainland China, as investors were haunted by trade anxiety and feared lack of progress during the China-US negotiations at the G20 summit, Reuters reported.

At Bursa, Tenaga rose 20 sen to RM14 – the highest since May 2018. It managed to climb from RM11.24 in late May this year on fund buying despite several pullbacks.

Consumer stocks were steadier with BAT the top gainer, up 46 sen to RM29.06 and Nestle 40 sen to RM149 and Dutch Lady 20 sen to RM63.50.

Chip maker MPI held steady, gaining 26 sen to a more than five-week high of RM9.40, Master Pack 17 sen to RM1.19 and SAM Engineering 15 sen to RM8.17.

Profit taking saw Hong Leong losing 42 sen to RM19 and Allianz 20 sen lower at RM13.80 while Genting gave up 13 sen to RM6.76.