Blue chips extend gains, focus on CIMB

KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips extended their gains in early trade on Thursday, March 11, pushing the key index to another fresh two-year high as investors bought banks and PLANTATION []s.

At 9.27am, the FBM KLCI rose 4.64 points to 1,332.86. Turnover was 103.21 million shares valued at RM93 million. There were 193 gainers, 110 losers and 140 stocks unchanged.

CIMB Equities Research said the FBMKLCI continued on its good run on Wednesday but is finding some resistance near its resistance trend line drawn from its November 2009 to January 2010 highs.

“We do not discount a push past this trend line today but at of current levels, every indicator looks overbought, making a pullback probable. Upside targets remain the 1,344-1,354 March 3, 2008 gap.

“On the downside, support can be found near the 1,308 January 2010 high as well as its 1,300 psychological level. Price action in the next few days could determine the longer term outlook for the index,” it said.

Among the gainers were plantations, including Far East which rose 40 sen to RM6.80 while IOI Corp added 14 sen to RM5.68. CIMB was the top gainer among banks, rising 24 sen to RM14.32.

Apex Healthcare jumped 24 sen to RM2.72 after announcing its proposed bonus issue. Keck Seng added 10 sen to RM5.05 on expectations of dividends while MPI climbed 14 sen to RM6.93 in tandem with the recovery of the chip sector.

KKB Engineering rose 11 sen to RM6.09 as investors remained optimistic abut more contracts ahead of the Sarawak elections.

Among the decliners were Putrajaya Perdana, down 25 sen to RM3.85 in thin trade while Eng gave up eight sen to RM2.58 as investors started to take profit.

Supermax shed eight sen to RM5.97 while MAS eased five sen to RM1.95.