KUALA LUMPUR: CIMB underpinned the FBM KLCI’s advance early Thursday after its record quarterly earnings while the ringgit rose against the US dollar and crude oil prices advanced.
At 10am, the KLCI was up 5.78 points or 0.33% to 1,776.79. Turnover was 793.39 million shares valued at RM502.75mil. The broader market was more cautious as advancers trailed behind decliners at 245 gainers to 352 losers and 336 stocks were unchanged.
The ringgit rose against the US dollar, climbing 0.34% to 4.277 from 4.291. Year-to-date, the ringgit is up 4.86% to the green back from 4.4845.
Reuters reported oil prices rose ahead of an Opec meeting on Thursday that is expected to extend a production cut aimed at tightening the market well into 2018, adding at least nine months to an initial six-month cut in the first half of this year.
Brent crude futures were trading at $54.40 per barrel at 0118 GMT, up 44 cents, or 0.82% from their last close. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at US$51.76, up 40 cents, or 0.78%. Both benchmarks have risen more than 16% from their May lows.
At Bursa Malaysia, CIMB rose 17 sen to RM6.30 -- the second sttraught day affter its record results. HLFG added 34 sen to RM16.60.
Refiners were the top gainers as the government revised the prices of retail fuel on Thursday. Hengyuan jumped 52 sen to RM5.82 and Petron added 13 sen to RM8.83.
Wing Tai rose nearer to its takeover price of RM1.80 when it added 25 sen to RM1.78.
Lafarge staged a mild rebound, adding 12 sen to RM5.22 after coming under selling pressure recently after it posted losses in the first quarter.
Inta Bina, a construction company which was the first to be listed on the Ace Market, added five sen to 30 sen. It was the most active with 86.3 million shares done.
DRB-Hicom rose eight sen to RM1.76 as investors were relieved that loss-making Proton had found a foreign strategic partner.
Under the agreement signed on Wednesday, DRB-Hicom will partially divest Proton to Geely (through new share issuance) and fully divest Lotus to Geely and Etika Strategy. DRB-Hicom and Geely will own 50.1% and 49.9% stake respectively in Proton.
“We maintain BUY recommendation with higher target price of RM2.58 (from RM2.22) based on 20% discount to sum-of-parts,” Hong Leong Investment Bank Research said.
However, AirAsia X
continued to come under some selling pressure, falling 2.5 sen to 42.5 sen with 77.55 million shares done.
DKSH was the top loser, down 39 sen to RM4.82, BAT was down 28 sen to RM44.72 and Petronas Dagangan lost 18 sen to RM24.20.
Pos Malaysia call warrants C6 lost 14 sen to 29 sen and its shares were down 13 sen to RM5.05.
Lion Industries came under profit taking after the recent rise when analysts turned more optimisitc about its outlook. It fell 11 sen to RM1.07.
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