KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 19): CIMB Group Holdings Bhd rose as much as 16 sen or 3% as investors bargain hunted for the beaten-down banking stock following the recent market selldown.

CIMB (fundamental: 1.05; valuation: 2.25) reached its highest so far today at RM5.10, placing it among top gainers on the exchange earlier.

At 10.25am, CIMB pared gains at RM5.05 with some 3.3 million shares traded. At 11.35am, the stock changed hands at RM5.04 for a market capitalisation was RM42.79 billion.

RHB Research Institute Sdn Bhd analyst David Chong said there was no specific reason behind the rise in CIMB's share price today. Chong said investors were accumulating stocks after the recent selldown in Malaysian equities.

“CIMB is rebounding as investors are buying in, after the market fell quite a bit. This is a rotational play, as banking stocks have yet to rebound. Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) also saw its share price rising yesterday,” he said.

Shares of CIMB had fallen in recent weeks. The stock finished at a fresh low of RM4.90 last Monday (August 17) before closing higher at RM4.94 yesterday.

On August 3, CIMB's closing share price was RM5.32.

The KLCI, which closed at 1,744.19 points on August 3 ended at a fresh low of 1,572.54 last Monday (August 17).

Investors are concerned about Malaysia's political backdrop as the ringgit contends with China's yuan devaluation, lower crude oil prices and prospects of US interest rate hikes this year.

Today, the ringgit weakened to 4.0995 against the US dollar and compared to the Singapore dollar, the ringgit depreciated to 2.9224.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company’s profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)