Mild pullback on blue chips early Friday

KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips staged a mild pullback early Friday on some profit taking after the 20 over points jump in the FBM KLCI the previous day with Genting Bhd down in active trade.

At 9.27am, the KLCI was down 2.25 points or 0.13% to 1,756.75. Turnover was 334.17 million shares valued at RM161.01mil. There were 172 gainers, 186 losers and 241 counters unchanged.

Kenanga Investment Bank Research said with continued breakout of resistance accompanied by upticks in key indicators, the index’s immediate technical outlook is increasingly bullish.
 
“From here, we foresee a possible testing of next resistance at 1,765 (R1) or, with a decisive breakout, higher towards the 1,800 (R2) key psychological level. Conversely, support levels can be found at 1,750 (S1) and 1,729 (S2),” it said.

Meanwhile, Public Investment Bank Research said conditions are still good enough to warrant continued investments in the local bourse. 

“Foreign investors may be less of a factor in the coming year, but that may be inconsequential given the ample domestic liquidity. 

“Our year-end 2018 target for the KLCI is 1,860 points, which corresponds to a 16 times multiple to one-year forward earnings,” said PublicInvest Research.

Reuters reported oil markets were stable on Friday as the Forties pipeline outage in the North Sea and the ongoing OPEC-led production cuts supported prices, while rising output from the United States kept crude from rising further.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at US$57.13 a barrel at 0119 GMT, up nine cents from their last settlement.

Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil prices, were at US$63.35 a barrel, up four cents from their last close.

Among the KLCI stocks, BAT was the top loser, down 40 sen to RM39.80 with 1,600 shares done while PPB Group lost 26 sen to RM16.64.

Genting Bhd fell 19 sen to RM9.06 while HLFG lost 18 sen to RM17.72 and KL Kepong 12 sen to RM24.36.

Southern Acids lost 24 sen to RM4.14 and Superlon 11 sen lower to RM1.92.

Sapura Energy rose 0.5 sen to 81 sen with 6.17 million shares done.

HL Industries, Texchem and Hengyuan rose 14 sen each to RM9.74, RM1.07 and RM12.86 respectively. Petronas Dagangan and Press Metal added 10 sen each to RM24.60 and RM4.99.

Kossan gained nine sen to RM7.84, Sunway added seven sen to RM1.67 while SIG Gas was up five sen to RM1.11.