KUALA LUMPUR: The FBM KCLI rebounded in morning trade following yesterday's selloff although a sharp decline in Tenaga Nasional's share price erased the gains.
The index had been weighed down by the rout in Genting Malaysia and Genting shares previously, while the overall market slid on the dour sentiment surrounding trade tensions and the US Federal Reseve's upcoming monetary policy meeting.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was up just 0.2 points to 1,685.17. Trading volume was 848.93 million shares valued at RM897.15mil. The market breadth was quite even with 339 advancers to 329 decliners and 313 counters unchanged.
Tenaga Nasional sold off 46 sen to RM14.26 in Wednesday's morning session as weak Q3 earnings resulted in cuts in the energy major's earnings forecasts for the year.
Genting Malaysia was the most actively traded stock for the second day running, and ended the morning session unchanged at RM3 after having put on as much as six sen to RM3.06.
Parent company Genting fared better, rising six sen to RM6.44.
IHH Healthcare, which announced its quarterly earnings yesterday, rose 28 sen to RM5.20.
Meanwhile, banks were on the move with Maybank gaining four sen to RM9.44, Public Bank adding 10 sen to RM24.90 and Hong Leong Bank rising four sen to RM20.70. RHB, however, lost three sen to RM5.22.
On the wider stock exchange, BAT rose 78 sen to RM37.38, United Plantation climved 36 sen to RM26.96 and UMS grew 21 sen to RM2.40.
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lost 30 sen to RM63.20, Rohas slid 6.5 sen to 83.5 sen and KESM dropped 20 sen to RM8.30.
Oil prices moved higher ahead of the OPEC meeting next week that will decide whether there will be supply cuts to counter the emerging supply glut.
WTI crude rose 50 cents to US$52.06 a barrel while Brent crude gained 57 cents to US$60.78 a barrel.
In currencies, the ringgit fell 0.17% against the greenback to 4.1953. It slid 0.1% against the pound sterling at 5.3445 and 0.1% against the Singapore dollar at 3.0438.
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