KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips wavered in early Thursday trade until some fund buying of Petronas Dagangan helped provide some positive momentum to the FBM KLCI. Consumer stocks continued to track higher.
At 9.19am, the KLCI was up 1.17 points or 0.06% to 1,829.80. Turnover was 557 million shares valued at RM155.64mil. There were 225 gainers, 178 losers and 256 counters unchanged.
Asian stocks were near record highs on Thursday, with a rally by Wall Street supporting bullish investor sentiment, while the dollar pulled back from three-year lows as the euro's recent rally lost steam, Reuters reported.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was 0.16% higher at 595.53, near the previous day's record high of 595.80.
Australian stocks rose 0.2%, South Korea's KOSPI added 0.6% and Japan's Nikkei climbed 0.9% to reach its highest level since late 1991.
On the outlook for the KLCI, Kenanga Investment Research said the technical picture is still in a “Golden Crossover” state.
It expects further gains towards the resistance at 1,840 (R1) levels and 1,866 (R2).
“Any signs of near-term weakness is likely to be short-term in nature, with immediate supports at 1,800 (S1) and 1793 (S2), where investors can look forward to buying on dips,” said Kenanga Research.
Foreign funds remained net buyers on Bursa on Wednesday though volume was thinning at RM37.5mil.
Petronas Dagangan was the top gainer early Thursday, up 26 sen to RM24.96.
As for consumer stocks, BAT rebounded 14 sen to RM32.74, Nestle added 10 sen to RM106.70 and F&N eight sen higher at RM28.50.
Parlo surged 17 sen to 27 sen, HL Industries 12 sen to RM9.91 and CCB 10 sen to RM2.21.
Sumatec was the most active with 88.19 million shares done. It climbed 0.5 sen to 10.5 sen while its warrants were flat at four sen. UMW OG dipped one sen to 37.5 sen and Sapura Energy
lost two sen to 79 sen. Perisai was unchanged at 7.5 sen.
Refiners Petron and Hengyuan were among the top losers. Petron fell 24 sen to RM11.90 and Hengyuan 20 sen to RM13.60.
Yinson lost five sen to RM4.06 and Genting Malaysia four sen to RM5.53.
Win a prize this Mother's Day by subscribing to our annual plan now! T&C applies.
