KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips traded higher at midday on Thursday, underpinned by strong gains in key stocks of Maybank, CIMB and Genting Malaysia while the ringgit climbed against the US dollar.
At 12.30pm, the KLCI was up 10.74 points or 0.61% to 1,781.75. Turnover was 1.61 billion shares valued at RM1.49bil. There were 349 gainers, 523 losers and 357 counters unchanged.
The ringgit rose 0.36% against the US dollar to 4.2778 and gained 0.42% versus the pound sterling to 5.5545 but slipped 0.07% against the Singapore dollar to 3.0925 and shed 0.14% to the euro at 4.8087.
Maybank, which is expected to announce a strong set of earnings during thew midday break, rose 21 sen to RM9.57 and pushed the KLCI up 3.58 points.
CIMB extended its gains, rising 22 sen to RM6.35 and nudged the index up 3.3 points after its record quarterly earnings.
AmBank jumped 18 sen to RM5.45, RHB Bank added five sen to RM5.44 while Hong Leong Bank and Public Bank were flat at RM14 and RM20.08.
Genting Malaysia rose 24 sen to RM6.19 and boosted the KLCI up 2.36 points, while Genting Bhd
added one sen to RM9.93. Tenaga was flat at RM13.82 but IHH gained three sen to RM5.76.
US light crude oil ralied 39 cents to US$51.75 and Brent was up 43 cents to US$54.39. Petronas Dagangan added 20 sen to RM24.58, Heng Yuan jumped 49 sen to RM5.80 while Petronas Gas edged up two sen to RM19.19 but Petronas Chemicals fell three sen to RM7.40.
Wing Tai continued to climb, up 26 sen to RM1.79, nearing the RM1.80 takeover offer price by its major shareholder.
Crude palm oil for third-month delivery fell RM13 to RM2,568 per tonne. United Plantations rose 20 sen to RM28.30, IOI Corp three sen to RM4.56, PPB Group was flat at RM16.98 KL Kepong and Sime Darby fell two sen each to RM24.78 amd RM9.30.
Inta Bina added five sen to 30.5 sen with 114 million shares on its trading debut on the Ace Market.
AirAsia X fell 1.5 sen to 43.5 sen with 132 million shares done.
As for telcos, Axiata lost 11 sen to RM5.10 and erased 1.64 points from the KLCI, Digi was flat at RM5.03, Maxis and Telekom shed two sen each to RM6.43 each.
Among the key regional markets,
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.43% to 19,827.43;
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index added 0.58% to 25,576.60;
CSI 300 up 0.73% to 3,449.11;
Shanghai’s Composite Index gained 0.39% to 3,075.98;
Hang Seng China Enterprise jumped 1.3% to 10,525.50;
Taiwan’s Taiex added 0.57% to 10,101.20;
South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.83% to 2,336.55 and
Singapore’s Straits Times Index gained 0.39% to 3,243.95.
Spot gold was up 23 cents to US$1,258.97.
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