KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips resumed their decline on Thursday after two days of gains, bogged down by foreign selling of Genting Malaysia and Digi in line with the cautious Asean markets.
At 5pm, the FBM KLCI was down 2.75 points or 0.16% to 1,759.09. Turnover was 3.15 billion shares valued at RM2.06bil, mainly due to MRCB ordinary rights, Hibiscus Petroleum and Sino Hu-Ann shares.
The broader market was firmer as advancers beat decliners 451 to 324 while 446 counters were unchanged.
Stock market data showed foreign funds were net sellers at RM23mil followed by retail investors at net RM12.3mil. However, the selling was absorbed by local institutions with net buying of RM35.3mil.
Southeast Asian markets traded cautiously on Thursday following mixed data from the United States, while Vietnam climbed to a near 10-year high driven by gains in consumer staples and financial stocks, Reuters said.
The ringgit weakened against the US dollar and the euro but rose against the pound sterling and Singapore dollar. It slipped 0.02% to the greenback to 4.2285 and was down 0.16% to the euro at 4.9795. It advanced 0.59% to the pound to 5.5782 and gained 0.08% to the Singapore unit at 3.1046.
Genting Malaysia fell 11 sen to RM5.39 and erased 1.11 points from the KLCI, KLCC was down 17 sen to RM7.84, Tenaga four sen to RM14.24 and IHH Healthcare three sen to RM5.69. Westports rose six sen to RM3.74. Genting Bhd
added two sen to RM9.61.
As for telcos, Digi fell four sen to RM4.91, Axiata was flat at RM5.30, Maxis edged up one sen to RM5.85 and Telekom regained part of its losses to add three sen to RM6.30.
US light crude oil rose nine cents to US$50.07 and Brent jumpoed 36 cents to US$56.16. Petronas Chemicals added one sen to RM7.32, Petronas Dagangan was flat at RM24.26 and Petronas Gas fell 14 sen to RM18.10. Petron rose 36 sen to RM11.18 while Hengyuan fell five sen to RM8.27.
Crude palm oil for third month delivery rose RM3 to RM2,718 per tonne. Chin Tek fell 25 sen to RM7.55, Riverview seven sen to RM3.59, PPB Group six sen to RM16.82, Sime Darby one sen lower at RM9.04 while KL Kepong and IOI Corp were flat at RM24.78 and RM4.53.
Among the banks, RHB Bank was up five sen to RM5.15, HLFG added four sen to RM16.90, AmBank was flat at RM4.47, Hong Leong Bank and Public Bank shed two sen to RM15.86 and RM20.56, CIMB and Mayank shed one sen each to RM6.40 and RM9.54.
MRCB ordinary rights was the most active when it started trading with 383 million shares done, slipping 2.5 sen to 9.5 sen but off the early low of five sen.
Hibiscus rose 4.5 sen to 66.5 sen, Hua-An two sen to 24 sen while Palette shed one sen to 33.5 sen after the rally the previous day.
Chip makers fared better with KESM up 60 sen to RM16.60, MPI 14 sen to RM14.06 while SAM Engineering added 32 sen to RM7.19.
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