For April, the 30-stock index was up 9.46 points or 0.58% from a month ago.
KUALA LUMPUR: Positive March trade data and encouraging news from Axiata provided some relief to the market on Friday, increasing investors' risk appetite as the FBM KLCI reversed out of it early losses.
At 5pm, the KLCI was up 5.06 point or 0.31% to 1,637.30. Turnover was 2.82 billion shares valued at RM2.11bil. Advancers beat decliners 447 to 395 while 383 counters were unchanged.
MIDF Research said March trade surplus was at a five-month high of RM14.4bil, the largest gain since October last year.
“Exports contracted for the second consecutive month in March 2019 however at a far lower pace of -0.5% on-year compared to -5.3% on-year in the previous month, gaining back the momentum as Chinese New Year holidays end,” it said.
Axiata rose nine sen to RM4.04 and added 1.42 points to the KLCI, making it the biggest gainer after it announced Mitsui & Co., Ltd was staking a strategic minority stake in Axiata Digital Services Sdn. Bhd. (AD) – the digital services arm of Axiata Group Bhd
.
The investment establishes a pre-money enterprise value of US$500mil or RM2.07bil for the core digital businesses of AD.
The optimism also heped Digi close up eight sen to RM4.52 and added 1.08 points to the KLCI while Maxis gained two sen to RM5.32.
Public Bank gained six sen to RM22.54 on some fund buying in the afternoon session after it hit an intra-day low of RM22.32. Maybank and CIMB edged up one sen to RM9.26 and RM5.24, AmBank three sen to RM4.45 while HL Bank was flat at RM20 and RHB Bank shed one sen to RM5.94.
Crude palm oil fell RM8 to RM2,024 per tonne, the lowest since Dec 11, 2018 despite the government's move to suspend export duties until Dec 31, 2019. The move will help to improve Malaysia’s CPO export competitiveness to clear the nation's current high stock level, CIMB Equities Research said.
PPB Group climbed 10 sen to RM18.80, Sime Plantation, IOI Corp and KL Kepong were unchanged at RM5.08, RM4.46 and RM24.70 respectively. United Plantations rose 40 sen to RM26.60 and BLD Plantation 29 sen to RM6.96 with 100 shares done.
US light crude oil fell 28 cents to US$61.53 and Brent fell 48 cents to US$70.27. Petronas Chemical was flat at RM8.95, Petronas Dagangan added four sen to RM24.06, Petronas Gas six sen to RM17.56 while Dialog advanced four sen to RM3.22.
Ekovest snapped its recent losing streak to surge 13 sen to 95.5 sen and the warrants 13.5 sen to 47.5 sen while IWCity climbed 10.5 sen to RM1.05.
DWL lost 12.5 sen to 95.5 sen in active trade.
Tasek lost 12 sen to RM6.18 while Lafarge was unchanged at RM3.72. YTL Corp added one sen to RM1.19.
YTL Corp subsidiary YTL Cement’s offer to acquire LafargeHolcim Ltd’s 51% stake in Lafarge Malaysia for RM1.6bil cash (RM3.75 a share) is strategically positive but poses immediate earnings dilution, CIMB Equities Research says.
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