KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips fell in early Thursday trade, with the FBM KLCI down more than eight points, dragged down by Petronas stocks, banks and plantations.
At 9.12am, the KLCI was down 8.37 points or 0.5% to 1,649.21. Turnover was 133.28 million shares valued at RM52.32mil. There were 108 gainers, also 108 losers and 154 counters unchanged.
Reuters reported oil prices jumped by more than one percent in early trading on Thursday as a huge wildfire in Canada disrupted its oil sands production, while escalating fighting in Libya threatened the North African nation's output.
Brent crude futures were trading at US$45.31 per barrel, up 69 cents or 1.6% from their last close. US crude futures rose 75 cents, or 1.7%, to US$44.53.
Hong Leong Investment Bank (HLIB) Research said despite a bargaining technical rebound on Wednesday, “we are of the view that the trend of KLCI remains under pressure as the current downtrend is deemed to persist until very convincing reversal signals emerge”.
It said overall sentiment is expected to stay weak, in tandem with overnight decline in US stocks and depreciation of the Ringgit against the US dollar.
“Traders are expected to continue stay cautious over the release of a few key external economic data, including US, China while digesting the news that the Ministry of Finance of Malaysia has taken over selected assets of 1MDB despite a looming interest payment of US$52.4mil on May 11 by 1MDB,” it said.
Petronas Gas fell 18 sen to RM21.68 and Petronas Dagangan 14 sen lower at RM23.60.
Hong Leong Bank lost 14 sen to RM13.26, Public Bank 12 sen to RM18.80, HLFG eight sen to RM15 and AFG seven sen to RM4.01.
PPB Group fell the most among plantations, down 14 sen to RM15.96.
MAA jumped 17 sen to RM1.23 on its share pay out. BAT added 50 sen to RM47.30 and F&N 16 sen to RM22.34.
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