fbpx

Blue chips treading water as key Asian markets dip

KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips were treading water early Thursday awaiting fresh leads and directions from institutional players but plantations KL Kepong and PPB Group slipped in razor thin trade.

At 9.13am, the FBM KLCI was down 0.55 point or 0.03% to 1,574.35. Turnover was 80.62 million shares valued at RM80.63mil. There were 138 gainers, 117 losers and 233 counters unchanged.

Soft US retail sales data raised concerns about the health of the world’s largest economy and risk of global recession, while sterling was volatile as negotiations on a Brexit deal continued, Reuters reported.

Both MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan and Japan’s Nikkei were little changed in early trade while US stock futures lost 0.15%.

At Bursa, foreign funds were net buyers at RM187.10mil on Wednesday while local institutions were sellers at RM185.20mil and local retail investors at RM1.90mil.

KL Kepong fell 14 sen to RM21.54 with 200 shares done while PPB Group lost 14 sen also to RM17.82 with 100 shares traded. IOI Corp lost four sen to RM4.29.

Tenaga shed four sen to RM13.72, Telekom three sen to RM3.84 and RHB Bank two sen to RM5.62.

Padini was down eight sen to RM3.65, Lii Hen four sen to RM3.11.

BAT charged ahead, up 74 sen to RM20.94 on rising volume as 182,900 shares were done.

Yison gained 12 sen to RM7.11 as investors were upbeat on its prospects. RHB Research is retaining its Buy call and target price of RM8.22 after it secured contracts worth US$5.40bil or RM22.70bil in Brazil.

Gopeng and Cocoaland added seven sen each to 71 sen and RM2.03.

Favelle Favco, YSP Southeast Asia and Petronas Dagangan gained six sen each to RM2.70, RM2.32 and RM23.36 respectively.

Source: TheStar