Market awaits fresh catalysts to spur buying interest

KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips were in the doldrums early Tuesday in the absence of strong fresh catalysts to spur buying interest.

At 9.11am, the KLCI was down 0.11 of a point or 0.01% to 1,567.48. Turnover was 200.77 million shares valued at RM79.54mil. There were 146 gainers, 112 losers and 201 counters unchanged.

Foreign funds and local institutions were net sellers on Monday at RM10.7mil and RM13.8mil while retail investors were net buyers at RM24.5mil.

Asian stocks and Wall Street futures inched higher as some investors held out hope that Britain still had a chance to avoid a messy exit from the European Union at key negotiations this week, Reuters reported.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.01%. Australian shares were up 0.12%, while Japan’s Nikkei stock index rose 1.38%.

At Bursa, HLFG fell 22 sen to RM16.10, HLBank 14 sen to RM16.36, Petronas Dagangan 10 sen to RM23.30 and KLCC four sen to RM7.96 in razor thin trade.

Petronas Chemicals lost four sen to RM7.24, WCE three sen to 39.5 sen, UMW, Tenaga and Digi shed two sen each to RM4.63, RM13.78 and RM4.70 respectively with just 100 shares each.

BAT rose 90 sen to RM18.50 after the recent upgrade, F&N gained 12 sen to RM34.58 and Carlsberg eight sen to RM27.40.

Magi-Tech added 12 sen to RM2.72 and MAHB 10 sen to RM8.84 while MISC was up eight sen to RM8.48.

HB Global jumped seven sen to 13.5 sen in active trade.

Source: TheStar