KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips fell early Thursday, easing back after two days of late gains on strong foreign fund buying, with IHH Healthcare among the decliners.
At 10am, the KLCI was down 0.89 point or 0.05% to 1,787.42. Turnover was 432.09 million shares valued at RM226mil. There were 208 gainers, 239 losers and 293 counters unchanged.
Asian stocks were little changed on Thursday, with sentiment fragile after the latest escalation in Sino-US trade war while global bond markets were rattled by Washington's increased borrowing and Japan's new tolerance for higher yields.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was off less than 0.1% in early trade, Reuters reported.
At Bursa, IHH Healthcare fell 10 sen to RM5.92 in active trade.
As for consumer stocks, BAT fell 28 sen to RM33.86, Carlsberg lost 18 sen to RM19.12 but Nestle added 70 sen to RM148 with just 100 shares done while Ajinommoto gained 30 sen to RM22.
HL Industries fell 10 sen to RM10.92, Petron seven sen lower at RM7.83 while MMHE skidded 6.5 sen to 73 sen.
Among the gainers, KESM rose 30 sen to RM17.30, Perstima 18 sen to RM5.38, Teck Guan 10 sen to RM2.83 while Pestech and MAHB were up eight sen each to RM1.58 and RM9.56.
Malakoff fell five sen to 99 sen in active trade on news of its purchase of Alam Flora Sdn Bhd for RM944.61mil cash consideration from DRB-Hicom. It expects Alam Flora to contribute 25% or more to the net profits in the future. DRB-Hicom rose five sen to RM2.29.
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