Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (April 6): The FBM KLCI remained in negative territory at the midday break today as the US-China trade spat overshadowed the announcement of the dissolution of Parliament by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to pave the way for the 14th General Election at noon today.

Najib, in a live television broadcast, announced the dissolution of Parliament effective April 7.

At 12.30pm, the FBM KLCI was down 2.40 points to 1,833.73. The index had earlier risen to its intra-morning high of 1,839.07.

Losers outpaced gainers by 538 to 141, while 535 counters traded unchanged. Volume was 1.73 billion shares valued at RM1.06 billion.

The top losers included British American Tobacco (M) Bhd, Dutch Lady Milk Industries Bhd, Press Metal Aluminium Holdings Bhd, Scientex Bhd, Fraser & Neave Holdings Bhd, KESM Industries Bhd, Ajinomoto (M) Bhd, Malaysian Pacific Industries Bhd, Batu Kawan Bhd and Tong Herr Resources Bhd.

The actives included UMW Oil & Gas Corp Bhd, Sapura Energy Bhd, Sumatec Resources Bhd, PUC Bhd, Diversified Gateway Solutions Bhd, Tiger Synergy Bhd and Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd.

The gainers included Hong Leong Industries Bhd, Hartalega Holdings Bhd, Cahya Mata Sarawak Bhd, Hengyuan Refining Co Bhd, Top Glove Corp Bhd, GHL Systems Bhd, Gamuda Bhd, Maxis Bhd and Grand Hoover Bhd.

US stock futures slid and the yen rose against the US dollar on Friday after Trump proposed additional tariffs on China, aggravating trade tensions and smothering a revival in broader investor risk appetite, according to Reuters.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan lost 0.25%. The index has spent the week swinging wildly in and out of negative territory amid the back-and-forth of the US-China trade dispute, it said.

Affin Hwang Capital Research said stocks may extend their rebound in the early trading of today's session.

"Unfortunately, technical indicators rigorously suggest that current rebound to be short-lived and unsustainable.

"As such, we anticipate that selected index-linked stocks to hold the FBMKLCI index up whilst the rest of the stocks are likely to resume their downward retracement," it said.

 

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