KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips staged a pullback in the afternoon session on Tuesday as selling pressure picked up on Petronas Chemicals and Sime Darby.
At 5pm, the FBM KLCI was down 0.43 point or 0.02% to 1,747.92. Turnover was 3.15 billion shares valued at RM2.78bil. There were 420 gainers, 412 losers and 461 counters unchanged.
The ringgit rose 0.15% to the US dollar to 4.2315 and edged up 0.1% to the euro at 4.9254 but it slipped 0.18% to the pound at 5.5868 and shed 0.02% against the Singapore dollar to 3.1078.
Fitch Ratings sees downside risk to the Malaysian government's optimistic revenue projections as contained in the Budget 2018 proposals unveiled last Friday.
The ratings agencys said the government's 2018 GDP growth forecast of 5.0%-5.5% assumes that strong recent momentum will be maintained, but there could be some headwinds from cooling external demand.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong shares fell on Tuesday, with investors' risk appetites curbed by a stronger-than-expected cooling in China's factory activity in October, Reuters reported.
Japan's Nikkei share average ended flat on Tuesday as losses in SoftBank offset optimism fuelled by the Bank Of Japan's decision to leave its purchase of exchange traded funds unchanged.
Oil prices eased on Tuesday after a week of gains as the prospect of increasing US exports dampened bullish sentiment that has driven Brent to more than two-year highs above US$60 per barrel.
Benchmark Brent was down 30 cents at US$60.60 a barrel by 0855 GMT, not far off July 2015-highs reached earlier this week, and up around 37% since their 2017 lows last June.
US light crude was 15 cents lower at US$54, still near its highest since February and also not far off its highest for more than two years, the wire reported.
Petronas Chemicals fell 13 sen to RM7.37 and erased 1.76 points from the KLCI while Petronas Dagangan lost 14 sen to RM23.96 and Petronas Gas lost six sen to RM18.64. Petron added 20 sen to RM11.70
Genting Bhd
fell 11 sen to RM9.05 and Genting Malaysia eight sen to RM5.03. MISC was down six sen to RM6.95. However, Tenaga added 20 sen to RM15 and added 1.92 points to the index.
As for telcos, Telekom rose 24 sen to RM6.35, Axiata added five sen to RM5.39, Maxis gained three sen to RM5.95 and Digi gained two sen to RM5.
Crude palm oil for thid month delivery fell RM24 to RM2,815 per tonne. Sime Darby fell seven sen to RM9.20, IOI Corp six sen lower at RM4.46 but PPB Group added two sen to RM16.78. KL Kepong was flat at RM24.60. Batu Kawan fell 14 sen to RM19.80 and BLD Plantations 12 sen lower to RM8.38.
BAT fell below RM40 – the first time in many years – down RM1.30 to RM39.20. However, Nestle rose 74 sen to RM88.50.
AirAsia rose 16 sen to RM3.34 as analysts were upbeat on the low-cost carrier on expecations of hefty dividends from the corporate exercises.
Press Metal gained 12 sen to RM4.43. UOB Kay Hian Malaysia Research expects the company, which has a current market capitalisation of RM16b, to be likely included in the FBM KLCI Index by end-2017.
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