KUALA LUMPUR: Profit taking on Sime Plantation, Digi and Maybank saw the FBM KLCI closing Tuesday, the first trading day of 2018, in the red on aggressive profit taking after last Friday's window dressing.
At 5pm, the KLCI was down 14.11 points or 0.79% to 1,782.70. Turnover was 3.7 billion shares valued at RM2.11bil.
The broader market was steadier with 512 gainers, 416 losers and 419 counters unchanged.
Analysts had expected the late window dressing last Friday to prompt profit taking on Tuesday.
However, the ringgit staged a strong performance against several key currencies.
It rallied against the US dollar, up 0.67% to 4.0195 while it rose 0.37% versus the pound sterling to 5.4482. It climbed 0.27% to the euro at 4.8423 and edged up 0.26% to the Singapore dollar at 3.0219.
Bitcoin halted its slide to climb US$26 to US$1,3651.
Key Asian markets were higher, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index up nearly 2%, Shanghai's Composite Index climbed 1.24%, Taiwan up 0.64% and South Korea's Kospi 0.49% higher. Singapore's STI gained 0.8%.
At Bursa, among the consumer stocks, Nestle fell the most, sliding RM2.10 to RM101.10, BAT lost RM2.06 to RM37.94 and Dutch Lady
fell RM1.20 to RM60.80.
Sime Plantation fell 51 sen to RM5.49 and erased 6.19 points from the KLCI while Sime Property lost 32 sen to RM1.46 and Sime Darby was up one sen to RM2.22.
SP Setia fell 63 sen to RM3.37 with 1.88 million shares done, giving up all of last Friday's gains.
KLCC lost 73 sen to RM7.91 and CMMT fell 40 sen to RM1.43.
DRB-Hicom rose to the highest since October 2014 at RM2.26, chalking up gains of 43 sen with 62 million shares done.
US light crude oil rose three cents to US$60.45 and Brent lost three cents to US$66.84.
As for refiners, Hengyuan jumped RM1.66 to RM17.96 and Petron 36 sen to RM13.90. Sapura Energy fell to fresh lows, down 3.5 sen to 67.5 sen.
Petronas Chemicals rose 15 sen to RM7.85 and added 2.14 points to the KLCI, Petronas Dagangan added 10 sen to RM24.36 and Petronas Gas four sen to RM17.52.
Among the heavyweights, Genting Malaysia added 15 sen to RM5.78 and Genting Bhd 11 sen to RM9.31 while Tenaga fell four sen to RM15.22.
Crude palm oil rebounded RM44 to RM2,547 per tonne. For efficient plantations, the average production cost per tonne of CPO would be between RM1,200 and RM1,500.
As for plantations, KL Kepong skidded 28 sen to RM24.72, PPB Group lost 16 sen to RM17.08, IOI Corp was flat at RM4.54. However, Batu Kawan rose 20 sen to RM19.80.
As for banks, Maybank fell 14 sen to RM9.66 and erased 2.69 points from the KLCI, Public Bank lost two sen to RM20.76.
However, Hong Leong Bank added two sen to RM17.02 while AmBank added four sen to RM4.45 and RHB Bank six sen to RM5.06.
Digi fell 21 sen to RM4.89 and it was the worst performing telco, Telekom lost 13 sen to RM6.17, Axiata fell 10 sen to RM5.39 and Maxis shed one sen to RM6.
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