Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 5): The FBM KLCI ended its two days losing streak today by climbing 12.33 points or 0.75%, buoyed by bargain-hunting activities.

At the end of trading hours, the benchmark index closed at 1,665.7 points, after rising to as high as 1,673.17 points. In contrast, the KLCI closed at 1,653.37 points on Monday, after diving 39.14 points.

Petronas Dangangan Bhd (PetDag), which is the top gainer today, also helped lift the index into the green zone.

Aside from PetDag, a rise in the share prices of several heavyweight counters like British American Tobacco (Malaysia) Bhd, Petronas Gas Bhd and Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd, also helped push the key index up.

“There is some bargain-hunting activities as the key index fell sharply yesterday," according to Inter-Pacific Securities head of research Pong Teng Siew.

Pong also observed that “small caps stocks continue to be the absolute focus of investors”, and expects the trend to persist in the next few quarters, which may see small cap stocks getting overheated.

Meanwhile, Hong Leong Investment Bank technical analyst Nick Foo Mun Pang told theedgemarkets that the KLCI is likely to face further downward correction, amid negative hangover from the overnight plunge in US and European markets.

This, he said, was due to lingering economic concerns in China, rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, and renewed weakness in the ringgit.

Across the local bourse, market breadth is largely positive, with 541 advancers versus 346 decliners, while 343 counters traded unchanged.

A total of 1.89 billion shares, worth RM1.937 billion, exchanged hands throughout the trading day.

The most actively-traded counters included FBMKLCI-HK, Kim Teck Cheong Consolidated Bhd and XOX Bhd. The top losing counter was PIE Industrial Bhd.

Regionally, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 0.65%, while Japan's Nikkei 225 was down 0.42% and the Shanghai Composite Index dropped 0.26%. South Korea's Kospi climbed 0.61% to finish the trading day.

Reuters reported Asian shares retreated in choppy trade on Tuesday, led by Chinese stocks, whose early rebound fizzled out, as investors remained unconvinced by Beijing's moves to restore market confidence, following a disastrous start to the new year.

In the currency market, the ringgit inched up 0.1% against the US dollar to trade at 4.3428, at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, the Brent Crude oil index slipped 0.46% to US$37.05 per barrel, as the US Crude Oil fell 0.3% to US$36.65 per barrel as at 3.46pm.

(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.)

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