KUALA LUMPUR: Gains in telco counters helped to give the local market a positive start on Monday even as global equities were cheered on by positive US economic data.
At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was up 1.37 points to 1,643,18. Trading volume was 2.13 billion shares valued at RM1.08bil. There were 495 gainers versus 374 decliners and 351 counters unchanged.
Maxis led the index higher with an eight sen increase to RM5.57 and Axiata climbed six sen to RM4.24.
Digi stayed flat in the morning session at RM4.70.
Public Bank was the biggest decliner, losing 12 sen to RM22.76 for a third straight day of losses, while Hong Leong Bank slid 10 sen to RM20.10 and CIMB lost one sen to RM5.10.
Seeing active trading was Sapura Energy
rising 0.5 sen to 36 sen, Hibiscus gaining seven sen to RM1.20 and Priceworth gaining 0.5 sen to 7.5 sen.
Asian markets started out strong on Monday given the healthy US payrolls data that was released over the weekend while China prepared to cut banks' required reserve ratios in a bid to stimulate financing for SMEs.
However, the gains were slowly pared back as the morning progressed with Chinese markets ending just below the flat line.
Coming out of a three-day weekend, the Shanghai Composite Index was down 0.1% after an early morning rally while the CSI300 Index also slipped 0.1%.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.3% while Japan's Nikkei was down 0.15% and South Korea's Kospi was flat.
Meanwhile, Brent crude prices, continued to make further inroads past the US$70 a barrel mark as Opec supply cuts took effect.
The international benchmark was up 31 cents to US$70.65 a barrel while US crude gained 30 cents to US$63.38 a barrel.
The ringgit was a laggard against key currencies as concerns over low inflation sparked speculation that the central bank might implement a policy rate cut.
The local currency fell 0.3% against the US dollar at 4.1025. it slipped 0.3% against the pound sterling at 5.3615 and 0.25% against the Singapore dollar at 3.0255.
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