KUALA LUMPUR: China's pledge towards more initiatives to fire up its cooling economy in the first quarter of 2019 gave Asian stocks a mid-morning bounce into the green.
At midday, the Shanghai Composite Index was up 1%, the CSI 300 Index grew 1.45% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 1.7%. Japan's Nikkei, coming out of a long weekend, advanced 0.8%.
However, Bursa Malaysia lent a more conservative reaction to the news. While partially retracing losses from earlier in the day, the benchmark FBM KLCI was one of two Asian indices to stay in the red. The other was the Philippines Composite Index.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 1.06 points to 1,675.1. Turnover was 1.29 billion shares valued at RM710.05mil. There were 349 decliners versus 295 advancers and 319 counters unchanged.
Petronas Chemicals faced selling pressure for a second straight day, losing 10 sen to RM13.84.
Petronas Dagangan and Petronas Gas were also in the red, losing 42 sen and eight sen to RM24.98 and RM17.92 respectively.
Other notable decliners included Axiata, dropping six sen to RM3.94, Sime Darby Plantation
shaving four sen to RM5.06 and Digi sliding three sen to RM4.45.
MISC lifted for the fourth straight session, climbing 11 sen to RM6.63. IHH also gained four sen to RM5.74 and Nestle added RM1.10 to RM146.40.
Most actively traded counters were Sapura Energy dipping 0.5 sen to 30 sen, Tatt Giap falling 0.5 sen to 14 sen and Seacera gaining 2.5 sen to 25.5 sen.
Oil prices rose on Tuesday amid supply cuts by Opec and Russa. WTI crude gained 63 cents to US$51.44 a barrel and Brent crude rose 74 cents to US$59.73 a barrel.
In currencies, the ringgit was 0.1% higher against the US dollar at 4.0977. It was 0.8% lower against the pound sterling at 5.2838 and 0.1% lower against the Singapore dollar at 3.0296.
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