Bursa Malaysia still in the red, Public Bank weighs

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia fell early Friday, in line with the cautious Asian markets, with Public Bank the main drag on the FBM KLCI despite its firmer third-quarter net profit ahead of the Budget 2019 proposals on Nov 2.

At 9.45am, the KLCI was down 3.75 points or 0.22% to 1,682.84. Turnover was 351.43 million shares valued at RM220mil. There were 240 gainers, 168 losers and 262 counters unchanged.

Asian shares wobbled in early trade, struggling to shake off the previous day's global markets rout, after weak results from tech giants Alphabet Inc and Amazon.com heightened concerns over world trade and economic growth, Reuters reported.

Kenanga Research said technically, the outlook was increasingly bearish for the KLCI as the index was now below the 1,700 psychological support, staging yet another downtrend. 

“With key momentum indicators still in negative territory, support levels are identified at 1,658 (S1) and 1,614 (S2),” it said.

Public  Bank fell 40 sen to RM24.50 with 1.05 million shares done. 

CIMB Equities Research said the bank’s net profit for the January-September period (9M18) was within its and market’s expectations, accounting for 74% of its full-year forecast and 73% of Bloomberg consensus estimates.

“Despite its strong fundamentals, we still rate Public Bank as a Hold in view of its rich valuations – one of the highest in the sector for its CY19 P/E of 15.8 times and CY19 P/BV of 2.2 times,” it said.

Tech stocks were mostly lower with MPI down 28 sen to RM11.12, KESM 18 sen lower at RM10.20 and MI nine sen lower at RM2.33.

However, ViTrox rose 12 sen to RM7.60 after its strong earnings. ViTrox Corporation’s 9M18 core earnings of RM77mil (+27% on-year) met 75% of Maybank Investment Bank Research and consensus’ full-year forecasts.

MISC lost 16 sen to RM5.94 on some profit taking. 

Selangor Properties surge RM1.21 to RM5.27 after its major shareholder offer to privatise it and proposed a RM5.70 a share repayment to minorities.

HLFG rose 24 sen to RM18.38 and Magni-Tech 15 sen to RM4.50.

Ajinomoto added 20 sen to RM19 and Carlsberg 16 sen to RM18.10.