Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 18): The FBM KLCI pared some of its gains before the midday break today against a backdrop of sluggish regional markets.

At 12.30pm, the KLCI was up 10.66 points at 1,571.40. The index earlier rose to a high of 1,576.87.

Gainers led losers by 379 to 304, while 655 counters traded unchanged. Trading volume was 5.31 billion shares valued at RM3 billion.

The top gainers included Top Glove Corp Bhd, Supermax Corp Bhd, Hartalega Holdings Bhd, Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd, Rubberex Corp (M) Bhd, Ajinomoto (Malaysia) Bhd, Comfort Gloves Bhd, Careplus Group Bhd, Adventa Bhd and Optimax Holdings Bhd.

The actively traded stocks included Borneo Oil Bhd, DGB Asia Bhd, XOX Bhd, Niche Emas Capital Holdings Bhd, Sanichi Technology Bhd, Green Packet Bhd, Vivocom Intl Holdings Bhd, Optimax and Sapura Energy Bhd.

The decliners included Nestle (Malaysia) Bhd, DKSH Holdings (Malaysia) Bhd, Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank), Duopharma Biotech Bhd, Apex Healthcare Bhd, LBS Bina Group Bhd and Tropicana Corp Bhd.

Reuters said Asian stocks inched up today as Sino-US tensions weighed on optimism generated by Wall Street's tech-driven rally, while the US dollar dropped against almost all major currencies.

The Trump administration announced yesterday it would further tighten restrictions on China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd aimed at cracking down on its access to commercially available chips, it said.

Hong Leong Investment Bank (HLIB) Research said while the KLCI is expected to continue its short-term range-bound consolidation (within the 1,539-1,600 range) amid domestic political uncertainties, a weak August reporting season, increasing numbers of new Covid-19 clusters and the detection of virus mutation D614G (which is 10 times more infectious) as well as heightened US-China geopolitical tension, the consolidation of ACE Market-listed stocks and small caps could be reaching the tail end following a technical rebound in the FBMACE (+2.6% after sliding 6.9% week-on-week) and FBMSCAP (+0.21% after tumbling 4.6% week-on-week) yesterday.

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