Genting slumped 15 sen to RM6.80 and erased 1.01 points while GentingM was down three sen to RM3.25 following the recent corporate news which were viewed as negative by investors.
KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips closed in the red on Friday, with MISC, Petronas Chemicals and Astro
weighing on the FBM KLCI but the broader market displayed more resilience.
At 5pm, the FBM KLCI was down 5.15 points or 0.27% to 1,868.47. Turnover was lower at 2.72 billion shares valued at RM2.19bil. Advancers led decliners nearly two to one or 601 gainers to 325 losers and 387.
Singapore shares jumped on Friday after its central bank tightened monetary policy for the first time in six years, while other Southeast Asian stock markets ended lower, with the Philippine index down nearly 2% on broad-based losses, Reuters reported.
Bitcoin rallied US$362 to US$8,092.
The ringgit fell 0.08% to the US dollar to 3.8798 abd was down 0.96% to the pound sterling to 5.5421 abd shed 0.01% to the Singapore dollar to 2.9580. However, it rose 0.03% to the euro to 4.7859.
At Bursa, MISC lost 16 sen to RM7 and erased 1.28 points from the KLCI. It hit an intra-day low of RM6.96 , the lowest since March 20, after it was downgraded by a research house.
Oil prices edged higher on Friday, heading for their largest weekly gain since July after U.S. President Trump's comments about possible military action in Syria and reports of dwindling global oil stocks, Reuters reported.
Brent crude rose by 44 cents to US$72.46 a barrel while US crude for May delivery gained 45 cents to US$67.52.
Petronas Chemicals fell eight sen to RM8.40 and wiped put 1.15 points. Petronas Gas lost 18 sen to RM18.02 but Petronas Dagangan added 12 sen to RM25.48. Serba Dinamik added 21 sen to RM3.51.
Sapura Energy continued its advance, up 5.5 sen to 74 sen with 259 million shares done. Bumi Armada gained 4.5 sen to 94 sen and Hibiscus 5.5 sen to 92 sen.
Astro's rebound was short-lived, falling 11 sen to RM1.98 and wiping out 1.03 points. The pay-TV operator will pay US$22.5mil (RM87.2mil) cash to Measat Global Bhd to use the transponder capacity on the Measat-3b satellite.
Crude palm oil fell RM14 to RM2,409 per tonne.
KL Kepong was the top loser on news that crude palm oil (CPO) tax for May has been raised to 5% from 0% currently. It fell 42 sen to RM25.56, Genting Plantations lost 16 sen to RM9.92 while PPB Group was flat at RM18.50 and IOI Corp added two sen to RM4.79.
Sime Plantations and Sime Darby were unchanged at RM5.59 and RM2.80 while Sime Property was up one sen a RM1.42.
Hartalega was 14 sen lower at RM6.50 as ivestors worried about its outlook.
As for chip and tech related stocks, KESM was the top gainer for the day, up 76 sen to RM18.16, MPI gained 25 sen to RM8.70 while Inari-WA jumped 22 sen to RM1.95 and Vitrox climbed 19 sen to RM5.64.
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