KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips fell early Thursday after two pyrrhic days of struggle to return in the positive zone as the lack of strong rerating catalysts and leads by local institutions weighed on the market.
At 9.27am, the FBM KLCI was down 3.08 points or 0.17% to 1,758.76. Turnover was 451.74 million shares valued at RM139.52mil. There were 190 gainers, 135 losers and 247 counters unchanged.
Asian shares were a tad firmer on Thursday, taking their cues from strong U.S. data although holiday-thinned trade and uncertainty about the impact of recent hurricanes on the U.S. economy are likely to keep investors cautious, Reuters reported.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was almost flat while Japan's Nikkei ticked up 0.1%. China, Hong Kong and South Korea are closed for public holidays and analysts cautioning against reading too much into index moves.
As for Bursa Malaysia, Hong Leong Investment Bank said the market may stay on a consolidation phase as foreign participation ended with another day of outflow on Wednesday.
“Also, with the absence of fresh catalyst, the KLCI could be capped near the 1,770-1,775 levels. Nevertheless, traders may focus on selected technology-related lower liners as buying support was noticed among stocks like VIS and Aemulus
,” it said.
Among the KLCI stocks, Hong Leong Bank fell 10 sen to RM15.78 with 100 shares done, Tenaga lost six sen to RM14.22, Genting Malaysia was down six sen also to RM5.44, Digi gave up five sen to RM4.90 and Genting Bhd three sen lower at RM9.56.
MRCB-OR, which started trading, fell five sen to seven sen with 82.8 million units done. MRCB lost 3.5 sen to 87.5 sen with 8.45 million shares traded.
Petron rose 30 sen to RM11.12, Petron-CI 11.5 sen to 26.5 sen and Hengyuan five sen to RM8.37.
KL Kepong added 16 sen to RM24.94 with just 100 shares done while Genting Plantations added 12 sen to RM10.58 with 200 shares trade.
Pestech added four sen to RM1.58.
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