Bursa Malaysia pares early gains as US Democrats win lower chamber

KUALA LUMPUR: Asian markets retraced most of their early gains on Wednesday as the Democrats appeared to make inroads in the US midterm elections.

News reports say the Democrats have wrested control of the US House of Representatives from the business-friendly Republicans while the latter retains control of the Senate. Observers say a stronger opposition in Washington may impair US President Donald Trump's efforts to impose more tax cuts, which would help buoy Wall Street.

At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was up 3.14 points to 1,711.94. There were 1.5 billion shares traded valued at RM1.3bil. Advancers edged out decliners 374 to 318 while 317 counters were unchanged.

Among the advancers, Genting Malaysia was seen rebounding as much as 16 sen to RM3.77 in morning trade. However, gains were pared going into midday and the counter ended five sen higher at RM3.65.

Related counter Genting also pushed higher by nine sen to RM6.83.

Other gainers included TNB, rising eight sen to RM14.88 and Axiata, gaining five sen to RM3.53

Maybank offset some of the morning gains on the KLCI with a 15 sen fall to RM9.23. This was followed by slight declines in Maxis, sliding six sen to RM5.33, and Digi, dipping one sen to RM4.27.

Top active counters included Sapura Energy, rising 2.5 sen to 38 sen on its proposed RM4bil rights issue.

Datasonic also saw active trade, gaining 2.5 sen to 47.5 sen, while Prestariang dropped four sen to 72.5 sen.

Oil prices dipped on Wednesday as rising output and US sanction waivers that allow Iran's biggest buyers to keep taking its crude reinforced the outlook for a well-supplied market, Reuters reported.

WTI crude dropped 32 cents to US$61.89 a barrel while Brent crude fell 15 cents to US$71.98 a barrel.

In currencies, the ringgit rose 0.25% against the US dollat 4.1665. It slid 0.2% against the Pound sterling at 5.4717 and was marginally stronger against the Singapore dollar at 3.0386.