KUALA LUMPUR: Public Bank and Petronas Gas dipped early Monday, dragging the FBM KLCI into the red as Bursa Malaysia tracked the cautious key Asian markets.
At 9.27am, the KLCI was down 3.87 points or 0.22% to 1,750.80. Turnover was 446.91 million shares valued at RM210.36mil. There were 176 gainers, 224 losers and 260 counters unchanged.
The US dollar fell against major currencies to its lowest in more than two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump criticised the Federal Reserve's tightening policy, while stocks slipped on fears of further trade protectionist measures, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, Japan's Nikkei stumbled 0.9%. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up a touch.
As for Bursa, Kenanga Research said technically, the index outlook is positive-bias as evidenced by positive stance on MACD and RSI indicators.
“From here, we expect a short breather before continuation towards next resistance at 1,790 (R1) and 1830 (R2) further up. Meanwhile, support levels can be identified at 1,720 (S1) and 1,700 (S2),” it said.
At Bursa, among the KLCI stocks, Public Bank fell 10 sen to RM23.84, Petronas Gas eight sen to RM18.28 and IOI Corp lost five sen to RM4.47.
UMW shed 10 sen to RN6.09, Freight eight sen to RM1.03 and Hengyuan seven sen lower at RM6.55.
MY EG Services rose five sen to RM1.29 and it was the most active with 38.6 million shares.
CIMB Equities Research said the company has been working on a Sales and Service Tax (SST) system which the new government could use to reduce leakages when the SST is launched in September and also a new module for foreign workers.
F&N was the top gainer, up 64 sen to RM37.96, BAT added 58 sen to RM34.28, Heineken 56 sen to RM23.40 and Nestle 40 sen higher at RM148.40.
Latitude Tree extended its gains, up 26 sen to RM3.90 as analysts expected it to benefit from the US-China trade war.
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