KUALA LUMPUR: Steel stocks rallied early Wednesday on expectations of strong earnings after the upbeat results from Southern Steel and upgrades by analysts.
At 9.03am, the FBM KLCI was up 2.02 points or 0.11% to 1,835.03. Turnover was 33.40 million shares valued at RM17.82mil. There were 111 gainers, 55 losers and 132 counters unchanged.
Southern Steel charged 22 sen higher to RM2.22 with 737,500 shares done.
Masteel added 13 sen to RM1.36, Ann Joo
nine sen higher at RM3.72 and Lion Industries gained six sen to RM1.31.
Southern Steel Bhd's earnings jumped to RM70.03mil in the second quarter ended Dec 31, 2017 on higher sale volume of steel products, slightly better margin while it expects demand to grow following the roll-out of infrastructure projects.
AmInvestment Research had upgraded CSC steel from “hold” to “buy” with a fair value of RM1.83. This is based on 10 times financial year 2018 (FY18) forecast earnings per share, in line with the average forward price-to-earnings of major global key steel producers.
The research house said in a report that value had emerged after the steep fall in share price in recent months.
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