KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips eked out small gains early Monday, taking the cue from the key Asian markets on renewed expectations that Democrat Hillary Clinton could win the presidential election.
However, whether the local stock market can hold on its gains remains to be seen unless there is strong push from institutional players after the weak performance last week.
At 9.30am, the FBM KLCI was up 0.3 point or 0.02% to 1,648.54. Turnover was 175 million shares valued at RM85.73mil. There were 176 gainers, 178 losers and 193 counters unchanged.
Reuters reported stocks rose and the US dollar rallied against its major rivals on Monday after the FBI said it stood by its earlier recommendation that no criminal charges were warranted against Hillary Clinton.
The news boosted U.S. S&P 500 Index futures 1.2%, a gain that is likely to snap the nine-day losing streak in the US stock index - its longest in more than 35 years and propelled Asian shares higher in opening trades.
Stock markets in Asia also opened up with MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan advancing 0.3%. Australian shares were up 0.7% and Japanese shares rose 1.2%.
At Bursa Malausia, Aeon Credit
rose 12 sen to RM14.62, Teck Guan gained 10 sen to RM2.33, MMC Corp and Wellcall added seven sen each to RM2.37 and RM1.96.
Also up seven sen each were Geshen and Matrix to RM1.65 and RM2.58. Genting-WA added seven sen to RM1.45.
Timber-plantation company Ta Ann added six sen to RM3.56 with 20,300 shares done. CIMB Equities Research upgraded it to Add from Hold with a higher sum-of-parts based target price of RM3.85.
The research house said the revision was due to Ta Ann's attractive valuations against peers as well as as stronger growth prospects from improving yields at its young oil palm estates (40% of estates are below six years old) in the coming years.
However, HLFG fell 28 sen to RM15.16 after the proposed sake of the 70.0% stake in Hong Leong Assurance and 65.0% shareholdings in Hong Leong MSIG Takaful were terminated
AmInvestment Bank Research is maintaining its Buy recommendation on Hong Leong Financial Group (HLFG) with a lower fair value of RM17.60 a share from RM18.10 based on sum-of-parts valuation.
Panasonic lost 40 sen to RM36.10, BAT 16 sen down to RM47.74, Gadang 13 sen to RM2.77, SP Setia nine sen to RM3.26 and Time dotCom seven sen to RM7.98.
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