KUALA LUMPUR: Maxis and Tenaga Nasional weighed on the FBM KLCI at midday on Tuesday as foreign funds stepped up their profit taking while the ringgit dipped against the US dollar.
At 12.30pm, the KLCI was down 7.69 points or 0.43% to 1,781.21. Turnover was 769.73 million shares valued at RM811.47mil. There were 253 gainers, 353 losers and 497 stocks unchanged.
The ringgit fell 0.15% against the US dollar to 4.2832 but rose 0.41% to the pound sterling to 5.4546, advanced 0.08% to the Singapore dollar at 3.0891 and edged up 0.25% to the euro at 4.7774.
China stocks barely moved on Tuesday morning as investors awaited a decision by US index provider MSCI on whether to add mainland shares to its Emerging Markets Index, Reuters added.
Maxis fell 25 sen to RM5.63 and erased 3.08 points from the KLCI on concerns about the earnings per share dilution. The telco raised RM1.656bil from the placement of 300 million shares at RM5.52 per share following the completion of the book-building process.
Axiata fell five sen to RM5.02, Digi two sen to RM4.98 and Telekom one sen lower at RM6.61.
Tenaga fell 18 sen to RM14.20 on continued profit taking and its decline wiped out 1.67 points from the KLCI. MISC lost 12 sen to RM7.37, Genting Bhd
eight sen lower at RM9.67 and Genting Malaysia two sen down at RM5.64.
US light crude oil eked out a two cent gain to US$44.22 and Brent added seven cents to US$46.98.
Sapura Energy lost nine sen to RM1.76, Petronas Dagangan fell six sen to RM24.22, Petronas Gas was flat at RM18.88 and Petronas Chemicals edded up one sen to RM7.21.
Crude palm oil for third-month delivery fell RM22 to RM2,466 per tonne. United Plantations lost 50 sen to RM28.20, Genting Plantations eight sen lower at RM11.04, KL Kepong two sen lower at RM24.88, IOI Corp was flat at RM4.50, Sime Darby one sen higher at RM9.61 while PPB Group added 10 sen to RM17.
Among the banks, RHB Bank gained three sen to RM5.10, AmBank and Maybank rose one sen each to RM5.08 and RM5.63, CIMB lost two sen to RM6.65, Hong Leong Bank and Public Bank were flat at RM15.48 and RM20.34.
Among the key regional markets,
Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1.15% to 20,298.98;
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index shed 0.08% to 25,903.82;
CSI 300 slipped 0.03% to 3,552.56;
Shanghai’s Composite Index edged up 0.06% to 3,146.25;
Hang Seng China Enterprise fell 0.41% to 10,477.83;
Taiwan’s Taiex rose 0.81% to 10,333.63;
South Korea’s Kospi eked out a gain of 0.03% to 2,371.60 and
Singapore’s Straits Times Index fell 0.17% to 3,241.81.
Spot gold rose US$1.46 to US$1,245.31.
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