CIMB soars to highest since Jan 2008

KUALA LUMPUR: CIMB Bank shares soared to its highest of RM13.20 since January 2008 at the midday break on Monday, Nov 16 as investors viewed the shares had more upside while key Asian markets also registered gains of up 2.22%.

Affin and its warrants and HLFG shares also rose on market talk that Guoco could want to merge the banking arms of both companies.

At 12.30pm, the 30-stock FBM KLCI rose 5.15 points to 1,276.11. Turnover was 572.22 million shares valued at RM512 million shares. There were 345 gainers, 229 losers and 229 counters unchanged.

Singapore's Straits Times Index rallied 1.7% to 2,773.33, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index added 1.5% to 22,883.71 while Shanghai's Composite Index rose 2.22% to 3,258.43. Japan's Nikkei 225 added just 0.09% to 9,778.65.

Light crude oil added US$1 to US$77.35, US spot gold jumped US$10.73 to US$1,129.43 while crude palm oil futures rose RM42 to RM2,330; the highest since Sept 1.

CIMB's 28 sen gain to RM13.20 pushed the 30-stock FBM KLCI up by 3.31 points. AMMB added seven sen to RM5.14, which nudged the index up by 0.52 of a point. BIMB rose 21 sen to RM1.47, Public Bank rose two sen to RM10.98 and Maybank one sen to RM6.86.

Affin jumped 25 sen to RM2.59 while Affin-WC rallied 23 sen to 38 sen with 11.17 million units done and making it the most active stock. HLFG added 13 sen to RM6.83.

IJM PLANTATION []s-WA were the top gainer, adding 30 sen to 61.5 sen with 945,500 units done.

Duty-free outlet operator DFZ fell the most, down 34 sen to RM4 with 1,200 shares done. Jetson-LA, which had surged in recent weeks, gave up 18 sen to RM2.70. Lityan, which had come under the scrutiny of the regulators after its share increase in price and volume, fell 12 sen to RM2.59.

CFM and Malaysian Mosaic fell 12 sen each to 52 sen and RM1.13.