KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips eked out slight gains early Friday, the last trading day of the first half of 2019 in absence of any strong fund buying as eyes focused on the US-China trade talks.
At 9.26am, the FBM KLCI rose 1.62 points or 0.1% to 1,674.32. Turnover was 206.96 million shares valued at RM89.42mil. There were 124 gainers, 151 losers and 242 counters unchanged.
Share markets in Asia edged higher early on Friday morning as investors clung on to hopes that a highly anticipated meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping this weekend could lead to an easing of trade tensions, Reuters reported.
In early trade, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.02%, following on from modest gains in global equity markets overnight. But Australian shares lost 0.21%, while Japan's Nikkei stock index was 0.3% lower.
Meanwhile, AllianceDBS Research maintained its KLCI target of 1,695, based on 16 times CY20 earnings.
“The KLCI’s earnings outlook remains uninspiring amid heightened uncertainties in the global and domestic markets, trade tensions and prolonged weakness in commodity-related sectors.
“Relatively slow M1 money supply growth suggests there is limited upside for the Malaysian equity market where earnings growth remains elusive,” it said.
Supercomnet Technologies-WA, which were listed on Friday, surged 18.5 sen to 40.5 sen with 821,500 units done.
MISC amd Petronas climbed 18 sen each to RM7.38 and RM17.28, Litrak nine sen to RM4.89, Apollo and Petron five sen each to RM3.93 and RM6.19.
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fell 12 sen to RM16.80 while BAT, Takaful and HL Bank gave up six sen each to RM29.04, RM6.86 and RM18.90 respectively. Caely, IHH and Yinson shed five sen each to 38 sen, RM5.75 and RM6.05 respectively.
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