Blue chips off lows

Written by Joseph Chin
Thursday, 31 December 2009 13:13

KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips were off their morning lows at the midday break on Thursday, Dec 31, with some mild buying of CIMB, Genting and DiGi, but the local bourse's performance lagged the regional markets of Hong Kong and Singapore.

The 30-stock FBM KLCI traded in a tight range of 2.3 points and at 12.30pm, it was down 0.58 of a point to 1,270.54. Turnover was 297.71 million shares valued at RM326 million. Market breadth was mixed with 234 gainers, 241 losers and 285 stocks unchanged.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index surged 1.8% to 21,866.32, the most since 1999, while Singapore's Straits Times Index added 0.56% to 2,895.77 while Shanghai's Composite Index added 0.35% to 3,273.86.

Light crude oil rose 27 US cents to US$79.55 while US spot gold added US$4.88 to US$1,097.78 and crude palm oil futures advanced RM46 to RM2,641.

At Bursa Malaysia, PPB fell 18 sen to RM15.82, Sime was three sen lower at RM8.95 while Public Bank shed two sen to RM11.12, dragging the index down by one point. AMMB and MISC shed three sen each to RM5 and RM8.52 while Tenaga slipped one sen to RM8.29.

However, CIMB and Genting rose six sen each to RM12.98 and RM7.39, accounting for 1.22 points of the FBM KLCI.

Nilai fell the most, skidding 23 sen to 56 sen with 5,000 shares done. Nestle lost 22 sen to RM32.78, MBMR 13 sen to RM2.45 while BHIC eased 10 sen to RM5 and KFCH nine sen to RM7.33 in thin trade.

Ho Hup lost two sen to 80.5 sen while Limahsoon plunged 4.5 sen to five sen after defaulting on a loan repayment.

Linear rose 14 sen to 72 sen with 20.2 million shares changing hands as investors snapped up the stock after the company announced that it had secured a RM1.6 billion contract to build a district cooling system in Manjung, Perak.

Rubberex rose 44 sen to RM2.43, its warrants 30 sen to 90.5 sen and its loan stocks 25 sen to RM1.36. KPJ added 18 sen to RM6.44 and Integrax 12 sen to 92 sen.