KUALA LUMPUR: Late fund buying powered blue chips higher on Monday as consumer stocks rallied while Digi and Axiata helped to give the FBM KLCI a significant boost.
At 5pm, the KLCI was up 6.08 points or 0.36% to 1,714.88 after hitting an intra-day low of 1,704 about 4pm. Turnover was 2.32 billion shares valued at RM2.49bil. There were 440 gainers, 378 losers and 369 counters unchanged.
On the external front, Hong Kong stocks ended roughly flat in choppy trade, after Democrats won control of the US House of Representatives, boosting the party's ability to block President Donald Trump's political and economic agenda.
The Democrats' House win creates a hurdle for Republicans to easily pass legislation through both chambers of Congress, clouding the outlook for some of Trump's key economic proposals. Reuters reported.
At Bursa, F&N jumped RM1.26 to RM34.96, BAT advanced RM1.02 to RM36.22, Ajinomoto RM1 to RM19.50 and Nestle60 sen to RM144. However, Ducth Lady fell 28 sen to RM63.52.
Brewers also did well with Carlsberg up 44 sen to RM19.70 and Heineken 38 sen higher at RM20.20.
Digi rallied 16 sen to RM4.44 and pushed the KLCI up 2.22 points while Axiata added 12 sen to RM3.60 and nudged the index up 1.95 points, Maxis edged up two sen to RM5.40 but TM shed four sen to RM2.37.
MAHB rose 55 sen to RM8.16, Sime Darby 11 sen to RM2.50 and MISC four sen to RM6.90.
Genting Malaysia eked out a three sen gain to RM3.64, after hitting limit-down in intra-day trade on Monday. Genting was flat at RM6.74.
Crude palm oil fell RM13 to RM2,109 per tonne – the lowest since September 2015 on concerns about oversupply.
However, PPB Group ended 32 sen higher at RM17.22 – an all time high. IOI Corp gained two sen to RM4.59 but KL Kepong fell two sen to RM24.88 while Sime Plantation lost eight sen to RM5.20.
US light crude oil fell 10 cents to US$62.11 and Brent shed four cents to US$72.09.
Among oil and gas stocks, Petronas Dagangan gained 48 sen to RM27.74, Petronas Gas 10 sen to RM18.70, Petronas Chemical flat at RM9.70 while Dialog was three sen higher at RM3.39.
Sapura Energy
rose 1.5 sen to 37 sen and it was the most active with 289.57 million shares done. It will hold an EGM on Nov 29 to seek shareholders' approval for its proposed rights issue to raise RM4bil.
As for semicon stocks, Kesm fell 20 sen to RM11.12 and Vitrox was down 13 sen to RM7.82.
Maybank fell 10 sen to RM9.28 and erased nearly two points from the KLCI, RHB Bank lost eight sen to RM5.23, Public Bank gained two sen to RM24.60 and Hong Leong Bank was up 12 sen to RM20.60.
The ringgit rose against the US dollar, up 0.29% to 4.1645 but fell 0.41% to the pound sterling at 5.4844 and lost 0.34% to the euro at 4.7862 and shed 0.13% to the Singapore unit at 3.0442.
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