Petronas stocks rally on crude oil recovery, Tenaga up

KUALA LUMPUR: Petronas linked stocks rallied, albeit in thin trade early Tuesday on the strong recovery in crude oil prices as smaller players also jumped on the bandwagon while underpinning the FBM KLCI was Tenaga Nasional.

At 9.09am, the KLCI was up 7.92 points or 0.48% to 1,649.34. Turnover was 110.26 million shares valued at RM58.37mil. There were 176 gainers, 54 losers and 158 counters unchanged.

However, Reuters reported Asian shares were on tenterhooks on Tuesday as investors awaited the Federal Reserve's meeting that begins later in session for clues on the outlook for U.S. monetary policy. 

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edged up 0.1% in early trade, while Japan's Nikkei stock index slid 0.5% as the dollar came off highs against the yen.

It also reported crude oil prices pulled back after their surge to 18-month on on the back of a weekend deal by OPEC and non-OPEC producers to curtail output. US crude futures slipped 0.4% to US$52.61 a barrel.

Petronas Dagangan rose 34 sen to RM23.74, Petronas Gas added 28 sen to RM21.92 while Shell rose eight sen to RM2.38. SapuraKencana and Uzma added six sen each to RM1.64 and RM1.47.

Hibiscus was the most active, up two sen to 33 sen. Bumi Armada rose 2.5 sen to 61 sen, KNM edged up one sen to 34.5 sen and Sumatec eked out 0.5 sen to 5.5 sen.

Power giant Tenaga added 18 sen to RM14.16. CIMB Equities Research said Tenaga aims to deliver earnings before interest and tax of RM20bil by 2025, implying a compounded average growth rate of 10% in 2015-2025.