KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips extended their losing streak to Tuesday with IHH Healthcare, IOI Corp and telcos weighing down the FBM KLCI but Suremetric shone on its trading debut.
At 5pm, the KLCI was down 8.57 points or 0.51% to 1,687.57. Turnover was 2.04 billion shares valued at RM1.93bil. There were 323 gainers, 484 losers and 353 counters unchanged.
Stocks in Hong Kong rose 0.6% as Beijing and Washington are said to be preparing for fresh trade talks, helping investors overcome the overnight rout in the US market, Reuters reported. Shanghai Composite Index added 0.93% but Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 2.06%.
Digital security solutions provider Securemetric, which was listed on the ACE Market, jumped 28.5 sen to 53.5 sen with 151.44 million shares done.
As for finance and banks, HLFG rebounded after the selling on Monday, up 38 sen to RM18.70 and nudging the KLCI up 0.78 point.
Hong Leong Bank fell 16 sen to RM20.50, RHB Bank five sen to RM5.19, Public Bank four sen to RM24.64, Maybank and CIMB one sen each to RM9.19 and RM5.50.
IHH lost 13 sen to RM4.54 and erased 1.92 points form the KLCI. IHH, the new owner of Fortis Healthcare Ltd, has named an interim leadership team to manage the transition and it will appoint four directors to the hospital chain’s board on Tuesday
Digi lost eight sen to RM4.34 while Axiata and Maxis gave up seven sen each to RM3.45 abd RM5.35 and Telekom three sen to RM2.34.
US light crude oil fell US$1.32 to US$58.61 and Brent was down US$1.46 to US$68.66 after US said suppliers should not cut back.
Among oil and gas stocks, Petronas Dagangan lost 10 sen to RM26.60, Petronas Chemical three sen to RM9.54, Petronas Gas two sen to RM18.74 and Dialog five sen to RM3.27.
Among the consumer stocks, Dutch Lady fell 36 sen to RM63.60, Heineken 36 sen to RM19.40, Nestle 30 sen to RM143.60 but BAT rose 58 sen to RM37.
Plantations fell as crude palm oil futures slumped on worries about rising output. Third-month delivery fell RM23 to RM2,011 – the lowest since Sept 3, 2015.
Batu Kawan fell 18 sen to RM16.80, Genting Plantations 16 sen to RM9.56 and Far East 15 sen to RM2.86.
IOI Corp lost 14 sen to RM4.35 on weaker earnings and erased 1.57 points from the KLCI. KL Kepong and PPB Group gained two sen each to RM24.90 and RM16.90 while Sime Plantations staged a mild rebound, up four sen to RM5.20.
Tenaga fell six sen to RM14.78, MISC shed one sen to RM6.61, Genting Malaysia four sen to RM3.56 and Genting was unchanged at RM6.72.
The ringgit fell against the US by 0.11% to 4.1925 and lost 0.5% against the pound to 5.4131 and gave up 0.11% against the Singapore unit to 3.0318. However, it gained 0.1% to the euro at 4.7116.