KLCI down 11.33 points, sentiment remains cautious

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia saw a follow through in selling pressure at midday which took the benchmark index lower. 

At 12.30pm, the 30-stock index was down 11.33 points, or 0.63% to 1,786.07. The index opened 3.95 points weaker at 1,793.45.

Market breadth was negative with decliners outpacing advancers. There were 306 gainers, 500 losers and 312 counters traded unchanged on the Bursa Malaysia. Turnover was at 1.13 billion shares valued at RM845.83mil.

Kenanga Research said overall, the technical outlook of the index seems bearish bias as evidenced by the continued “death Cross” between 20 and 50-day SMAs as well as downtrend movement in MACD below the signal line.

“From here, lower supports are seen at 1,780 (S1) and 1,750 (S2) to hold its place for now and would advocate a buy weakness. Conversely, immediate resistances can be found at 1,800 (R1) and 1,820 (R2),” it said. 

Dealers said market sentiment still adversely affected by the heavy sell off last week. They said market participants were still not in a hurry to acquire those beaten down stocks for fear of more market declines.

Laggards in the FBM KLCI component stocks were led IHH Healthcare, which dragged the index down by 3.4799 points. Tenaga Nasional pushed the index down by 1.4752 points while Petronas Chemicals dragged the index down by 1.4752 points. 

IHH shed 26 sen to RM6, Tenaga lost 16 sen to RM14.88 and Petronas Chemicals fell nine sen to 8.23.

Leading the top gainers on Bursa Malaysia are consumers stocks, Nestle added RM1 to RM148, Aeon Credit rose 54 sen to RM15.08 while Fraser & Neave accumulated 38 sen to RM37.28.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that most Southeast Asian stock markets fell on Monday, with Malaysia declining for a fifth session in six, while Indonesia extended gains on the back of financial and infrastructure stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei share average was nearly flat at 22,445.27 points by the mid-morning break, erasing gains of 0.4% earlier in the session.

The CSI300 index rose 0.7% to 3,842.47 points at the end of the morning session, while the Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.2% to 3,146.85 points.

The Hang Seng index added 0.6% to 30,758.49 points while the South Korean’s Kospo was up 16.38 points at 2,477.18.