KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 27): Steel counters tumbled on Wednesday amid continued corrections in the price of the metal.
Ann Joo Resources Bhd slipped as much as 15 sen or 5.75% to RM2.46. It closed at RM2.47 on Wednesday, still down 14 sen and 5.36%.
Hiap Teck Venture Bhd and Melewar Industrial Group Bhd both ended at intraday lows. Hiap Teck slipped eight sen or 12.31% to 57 sen while Melewar Industrial shed three sen or 6.67% to 42 sen.
Lion Industries Corp Bhd also lost 10.5 sen or 11.8% to 78.5 sen at closing, after falling to an intraday low of 76.5 sen.
Meanwhile, Tong Herr Resources Bhd, Southern Steel Bhd, Leader Steel Holdings Bhd, CSC Steel Holdings Bhd were also on a downward trend.
Tong Herr closed seven sen or 2.33% lower at RM2.93 while Southern Steel closed two sen or 2.34% lower at 83.5 sen.
Leader Steel and CSC Steel slipped one sen each to 67.5 sen and RM1.35, respectively, at closing.
"Interest in steel counters may be over as steel price has corrected by quite a lot of late," Rakuten Trade Research head of research Kenny Yee told theedgemarkets.com.
Noting that steel price has been very volatile of late, he said the price may continue to correct as China is seeing slowing growth.
Reuters reported that Chinese steel futures fell on Wednesday as raw material prices plunged amid government intervention to cool commodity prices, while demand for the industrial metal stayed subdued on output controls.
The most-active coking coal and coke futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange opened down 9% to 2,704 yuan and 3,430 yuan, respectively, hitting their daily trading limits.
Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd vice president of equity research Thong Pak Leng opined that the fall in steel counters may also be due to overall market weakness.
"The steel counters went up quite a lot recently. It is possible that investors are taking profits," he told theedgemarkets.com.
He added that the selling of property stocks in Hong Kong could have a negative impact on steel counters as they are part of the supply chain in building construction.