KUALA LUMPUR: Some mild selling of Public Bank, Maybank and IHH Healthcare sent the FBM KLCI slightly into the red early Wednesday but a jump in crude oil prices helped bolster Petronas-linked counters.
At 9.12am, the KLCI was down 0.34 points or 0.02% to 1,690.07. Turnover was 138.79 million shares valued at RM49.79mil. There were 138 gainers, 82 losers and 140 counters unchanged.
US stock futures and Asian equities eked out modest gains on Wednesday as investors seized on Apple Inc's earnings and comments from its chief that US-China trade tensions were easing, sending the iPhone maker's shares soaring in after-hours trade, Reuters reported.
S&P 500 e-mini futures tacked on 0.1% in early trade while MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edged up 0.05%. Japan's Nikkei rose 0.2% before erasing gains.
On the KLCI, Kenanga Research maintained its neutral outlook as the index is still above the 20 and 50-day SMAs but the stochastic indicator is in the overbought zone.
“Should the (US-China) trade talk turn out favourable, continuous positive momentum may see it trending higher to resistance levels at 1,730 (R1) and 1,800 (R2) possibly. Conversely, support levels can be identified at 1,650 (S1) and 1,600 (S2) further down,” it said.
KL Kepong fell the most, down 24 sen to RM24.26 with just 100 shares done, MAHB lost six sen to RM7.98 and IHH four sen to RM5.54.
Public Bank and Maybank fell six sen each to RM24.74 and RM9.63.
However, Petronas Dagangan added 16 sen to RM26.40 and Petronas Gas six sen to RM17.84.
Nestle was the top gainer, up 30 sen to RM148.80, BAT 30 sen to RM38.30 while Axiata added seven sen to RM4.03.
Insurer LPI added 12 sen to RM16.50 after its dividend announcement and Takaful added 11 sen to RM4.35.
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