KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips managed to stage a relief rebound early Friday, underpinned by gains in Public Bank and Tenaga Nasional after two days of battering by foreign funds on worries about the country’s RM1 trillion debt.
At 9.04am, the KLCI was up 10.42 points or 0.59% to 1,786.08. Turnover was 78.48 million shares valued at RM61.16mil. There were 131 gainers, 88 losers and 138 counters unchanged.
Kenanga Research said technically, the heavy sell-down has turned its technical picture negative.
It said a “Death Cross” between 20 and 50-day SMAs has emerged, while the MACD continues its strong downtrend.
“From here, we expect lower supports of 1,750 (S1) and 1,700 (S2) to hold its place for now, and thus, would advocate a buy on dips. Conversely, immediate resistances can be found at 1,780 (R1) and 1,800 (R2),” it said.
Public Bank rose 46 sen to RM24.82, Tenaga added 22 sen to RM14.98 and Genting Bhd
nine sen higher at RM8.53.
AirAsia rose 13 sen to RM3.36 after its stronger earnings. However, CIMB Equities Research expects higher fuel prices to pressure the earnings as it only hedged about 12% of its FY18F jet fuel needs at US$68.55 per barrel.
Heineken rose 24 sen to RM23.48, F&N added 16 sen to RM37.02 while Aeon added 10 sen to RM2.40.
MyEG rose 1.5 sen to 81 sen with 2.67 million shares done and YTL Power one sen up to 76 sen.
Petron lost 33 sen to RM7.88, UMW 16 sen to RM6.25 and Maybank eight sen lower at RM10.18.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported Asian shares were slightly weaker on Friday amid fragile market sentiment after US President Donald Trump called off a key summit with North Korea, though investor concerns were softened by expectations the two countries may still continue dialogue.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan ticked down. South Korea's Kospi fell 0.65% and Japan's Nikkei fell 0.3%.
Safety bids boosted bond prices globally, driving yields lower.
The 10-year US Treasuries yield stood at 2.988%, falling further from a seven-year high of 3.128% hit a week ago.
