KUALA LUMPUR (Apr 2): Oil and gas stocks have been trading “range bound” in the morning trade today despite crude oil price jumping as much as 5% overnight on Wednesday after US crude output declined for the first time in two months.

Among the stocks which have advanced are Perisai Petroleum Teknologi Bhd (fundmental: 0.45; valuation: 1.2), rising 2.83% to 54.5 sen, SapuraKencana Petroleum Bhd (fundamental: 1.3; valuation: 1.8) up 0.43% at RM2.33 and UMW Oil & Gas Corp Bhd (fundamental: 1.05; valuation: 0.6) adding 0.45% to RM2.22.

A remisier told www.theedgemarkets.com that oil and gas stocks are “not jumping wildly” as investors have anticipated such price movements and have factored them in.

“The market is not really reacting to the changes in oil prices. It was up about 5% overnight but it has come right down again. So, the psychology in the market is that the oil price should be trading roughly around US$60/barrel. That is why you see it trading range bound and there is not much excitement to it,” he said.

Last night, crude oil price rose as much as 5% after it was reported that crude production in the US fell 0.4% to 9.4 million barrels a day in the week to March 27.

This morning, crude price fell again by 0.93% to US$56.57/barrel.

(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.)